


Lagbrotna

by cognomen



Series: Fate Cycle [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Slow Burn, Viking/Warlord AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 36
Words: 56,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1977054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>A small raid, at best. Perhaps twenty five men.</i><br/> <br/><i>But they have come awake, aware on sleeping enemies. They have come ahorse and bring death. Will watches impassively, still. He knows enough of war and death to have learned the virtues of immobility. One that did not run did not catch the eye, did not draw the sword down upon his back.</i></p><p>  <i>He turns toward his lord's tent and sees the man stern faced in the entryway, fingers clenched in the oiled canvas flap that closes the tent, holding it aside. His lord senses Will's gaze on him, and turns, anger writ clear and decisive on his features.</i></p><p>  <i>Will had not forseen this.</i></p><p>  <i>He had not been asked to look.</i></p><p>An experiment in writing in slightly smaller pieces at hopefully more frequent intervals. Written for a prompt/picture set on tumblr by anothersalvagemission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elsha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsha/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Warlord AU photo set](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/62154) by LSH. 



Screams wake Will from his dreams where they have blended waking and sleep. He does no know if he has dreamed ahead, or if the sounds had just crept familiar into one of his few innocent dreams and found themselves welcome and familiar. As among friends.

He moves, and the chains move with him. Hard cuffs at his chapped wrists, heavy bands at his ankles. They are longer than some he has endured before, but heavy. Will is slowed to a shuffle as he makes for the front of his tent. With both hands held together to keep the chill manacles from scraping his tender wrists, he brushes the flap of his tent aside. 

There is chaos living without, soldiers stumbling half woken from their tents to fight what enemy has presented itself. Dark horses seat dark warriors, made bulky with furs against the frigid night. Where they go there is the sound of hooves, the flash of steel. The sounds of pain. Will cannot, standing as he is in the eye of the storm, see that many riders. 

A small raid, at best. Perhaps twenty five men.

But they have come awake, aware on sleeping enemies. They have come ahorse and bring death. Will watches impassively, still. He knows enough of war and death to have learned the virtues of immobility. One that did not run did not catch the eye, did not draw the sword down upon his back.

He turns toward his lord's tent and sees the man stern faced in the entryway, fingers clenched in the oiled canvas flap that closes the tent, holding it aside. His lord senses Will's gaze on him, and turns, anger writ clear and decisive on his features.

Will had not forseen this.

He had not been asked to look.

If, perhaps, his dreams had hinted in the recent days, he had not been asked. Sometimes he dreamed of the far future, years before it mattered. If he had felt these dreams to be more imminent, he had not cared to share them. He has passed hand to hand, thusly, since the warlords had obliterated and enslaved his people. One more aspect of the countryside smashed like a flower beneath the heels of the many tribal armies.

His chains here are heavy. His heart is heavy. He has been used both more kindly and more cruelly in the past. None of it weighs on his decision to let death come to these Surdik - these southerners. 

It was because they had never asked, but demanded only obedience. Because they did not listen. He could unsling the cords of fate, pull one from the twisted weaves to follow, if asked. But it was ever at flux, Fate. It was not a line that could not be broken.

His lord disappears within the tent. Will's heart is calm when the man reappears with the dagger. This, he had dreamed. 

It is wicked steel, the blade a slithering shape like a snake, bright in the flickering light of the fires now adding color and chaos to the camp. The tents are burning. One of the horsemen holds aloft a torch, until Will sees an arrow take him. He feels nothing for the loss.

"You are a curse,' his lord shouts, loud over the sounds of the fighting. His knuckles are rounded white on the hilt of the bare dagger.

Will only smiles, displaying his chains.

"I am what you have made of me, my lord," he answers. He is ready. 

In his dreams he felt peace when the dagger took him. He does not try to stop it. Will closes his eyes and lowers his chained hands, feeling the sting of the cold iron against his raw wrists. 

It is this way that he mistakes the pounding of hooves, that he loses the sound beneath the rhythm of his heart. Then he can feel the bulk and brush of a heavy body passing near enough that the breeze touches his hair. Fate steps in the way of Will's death, riding a glossy bay horse with shining, sweated flanks. He can smell the heat and exertion of the animal, and when he looks up, all he can see of the rider is a fierce, bulky beast.

Thick fur covers the shoulders, and for a moment, Will cannot reconcile the image before his eyes as anything but a horned, black monster. A black creature with sweeping antlers spread wide in a crown. 

Then the archer looses his shot and with the arrow flown, the image becomes clear. Just a man on a horse - the horns he had seen nothing more than the curved wings of a bow held high to take the shot. 

His lord stands on the other side of the horse, and from his chest springs a black fletched arrow. 

Will had dreamed once, of seeing the man laying open and slain with a flight of ravens pouring from his chest.

Here the vision springs alive, and he feels triumphant, having seen it through.

Will is laughing when the rider reaches down and seizes the chain between his wrists, wrapping the length around his own fist to jerk Will from his feet and into the air. He lifts him the whole of the way from the ground, seemingly effortless. 

He has the image of deep, dark eyes hidden in the depths of the wolf-eared cloak the man wears. They are looking into Will's own, seeking the telltale luminescence, the brilliant blue that would make a liar of him if he tried to deny his gift of sight.

His legacy. His curse.

Will cannot hide, then. There is no smile of victory when he is recognized, but no doubt that he is. He has been sought. The warrior hoists him up over the front of his saddle. 

"Ride," he says, though the voice is not cruel. It is a command. "Or be slung. Your choice, Seer."

Will rides, though the high front of the saddle bruises him beneath his ribs, though his body must sit twisted astride with his legs chained. The warrior holds him steady and still with little effort - strength, and a sure seat. A born horseman.

They do not stay in the camp, then. There is no reason. They have stolen what they sought, and cut the head from the snake.

His captor gives a sharp signal whistle. It echoes and calls, rider to rider, and then they run. Horsemen fall in around them, holding Will and his captor at their center. 

He watches the camp at which he had lived for some few years now disappear behind them. He must cling to the heavy furs of his captor, leaning his shoulder into the man's chest. He can feel the rush of the man's warm breath on the nape of his neck, when he peers behind them over the furred shoulder. The wolf skin cloak smells of blood and smoke, and he digs his fingers into the long coarse fur and holds on. His bared skin numbs where the cold wind of their passage touches.

Without slowing, another rider eases alongside, taking Will from his captor in a transfer that leaves Will breathless. This horse is fresher, will not falter under the extra weight. They value the animals, then. 

For him, the ride is slow agony. Though the countryside rushes past in a blur, the weight at his wrists and ankles rubs and chafes and the chains make a maddening sound. 

A deep sadness wells up in him at the loss of his own death. He has dreamed that his only freedom, and there failed at every fork. Will twists cruelly between the fingers of fate.

They ride north.  
-


	2. Skera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Will they follow us?"
> 
> It is a question, perhaps, for the Sight. Will does not think he needs it.
> 
> "Not if you killed Calder as well as Einar," Will answers. "Perhaps not quickly even if he lives. They will need time to settle leadership, and to discover I am missing."
> 
> Will sighs and his breath frosts the air with white. He cannot stop himself from adding, "They will need time to decide if they even want me back."
> 
> "And revenge?" It is the man in the wolf's cloak, eyes dark in the shadows of it. "Will they want that?"

They do not stop until dawn rides oranges and golds beneath the heavy purple of the night, a spectacle of color in its efforts to lift the darkness. 

Will's original captor, the man in the wolf-eared cloak, whistles shrilly to draw the riders up. They turn, mill, circle, a tight group of ever moving horses. Will is aware, beneath the nagging pain of his wrists and ankles, of conversation. His current guard leans into him, repeating a question Will had not heard the first time. He is exhausted, drifting in his own mind.

"Will they follow us?"

It is a question, perhaps, for the sight. Will does not think he needs it.

"Not if you killed Calder as well as Einar," Will answers. "Perhaps not quickly even if he lives. They will need time to settle leadership, and to discover I am missing."

Will sighs and his breath frosts the air with white. He cannot stop himself from adding, "They will need time to decide if they even want me back."

"And revenge?" It is the man in the wolf's cloak, eyes dark in the shadows of it. "Will they want that?"

Will rolls his shoulders. There are too many factors he does not know to venture a guess. 

His captors decide to risk camp. Will is lowered from horseback onto stiff legs and screaming muscles. It is only his guard's hand on the nape of his neck that keeps him upright after the initial rattling impact.

The cold ground shocks his already numbed feet, the shackles catching at his sore wrists when he hugs his arms to himself for warmth.

The man in the wolf skin sits atop his horse and eyes Will, top to bottom. Will feels measured, and finds himself uncertain of the result. He has never been tall or broad, never had a warrior's countenance.

The picture he must present now is pitiful, pulled from sleep in the middle of the night. He wears cotton rags, goes barefoot, and his only adornments are iron chains. Will pulls his lower lip between his teeth and summons what defiance does not flee him with his next violent shiver, pulling himself upright.

He thinks, for the first time _longingly_ ,of his pile of stinking, cast of furs. Foul. Dirty.

Warm.

After a moment, Wolf-ears smiles. It is not wholly pleasant but it is the victorious smile Will had not seen upon his capture. Perhaps, until now, the man had doubted his worth.

Will wishes he knew what he had done to confirm it.

"Strike those chains off his ankles," Wolf-ears orders, looking down at him. He turns his horse away to see to the others, then hesitates, stopping to look back at Will as if to be certain of something.

"He might run, Lagbrotna," Will's guard ventures, but it is not quite an argument. He does not dare second guess his lord. The man is still close behind him.

"He would be unwise to run," Wolf-ears - Lagbrotna, an unusual name - answers. His mouth is a wry, genuine twist of amusement. "I intend him to ride."

Lagbrotna's hands lift toward his own throat then, and Will thinks him about to draw a knife, to make a threat that is intended to warn Will to compliancy. 

Instead he undoes the pin - an elaborate twist of silver that suggests three arrows intertwined. The wolf-eared cloak falls back, revealing brown and silver hair in a fine braid down Lagbrotna's back, loose over his eyes. The features are fierce and proud, well formed. There is a wisdom in the dark eyes, and mischief, and a hundred creatures spring to mind that have looked at him with the same wildness. He is a leader of men, Will thinks.

He has known many.

Lagbrotna drops the cloak into Will's hands, and it is all Will can mange to have the presence of mind enough to keep it off the ground. It drags at the chain between his wrists and he hisses, but Lagbrotna has already gone. 

The fur is thick and black in his hands. It still bears the warmth of its owner, and Will pulls it on quickly. It is massive over his frame, and he is glad, for once, that he is small when it hangs as far as his calves and keeps the bulk of him warm. 

His guard dismounts, and the raiders make small camp quickly, efficient at their duties. The horse are cleaned, dried, watered. Will is offered a skin as well, and he drinks with greed while his guard watches with narrowed, impatient eyes.

He is thin, Will's guard. Arrow straight, slighter than the others and shorter. Clean, for a horseman, Will thinks. Short hair and a meticulous beard over a squared jaw that is not broad enough for true squareness. Fussy, Will supposes. Exacting, he allows, after a slightly longer observation.

The intensity of Will's lucent blue gaze seems to unsettle the man. Will uses it to his advantage, watching intently the man's every motion.

"Will you strike my chains like the said?" Will asks, as he hands back the water skin, a rattle of links at his wrists for punctuation.

"Your leg irons," The man answers, guardedly. "It wouldn't be smart to run."

Will does not care to run - they would ride him down or shoot his legs from beneath him. Barring that, they are nowhere. Somewhere within the broad belt of land where the Ardik and Surdik tribes do not yet meet. Will would freeze or starve, or some other Lord would take him. 

"It would be unwise to run," he repeats Lagbrotna's words, to gauge reaction in his guard. 

He is not wholly disappointed.

"Don't push your luck, Seer," his guard snaps, one hand on Will's shoulder, propelling him suddenly to the ground.

From his own cloak, the man produces a wicked black spike, and for a moment Will wonders if he has inadvertently found some old rivalry between his guard and the leader, Lagbrotna.

Instead, his guard inserts the tip of the spike into the first link of chain on Will's cuffed ankles. Will exhales involuntarily - it is only an Iron lever, in this case. 

"Hold still," his guard offers wryly, having seen the fear in Will's features when he'd produced the tool. "I'll need leverage to do this, Seer, and I'm sure you value your ankles."

"My name is Will," he returns, as much habit as genuine intolerance for the title. His guard looks up, meeting Will's eyes by choice for the first time.

"Then, hold still, Will," he repeats. 

Will feels his throat tighten in anticipation of pain when he sees his guard brace himself into the he task, his heart thumping. He does not quite know what to expect. 

There is a pressure that grows slowly in the opposite side of the cuff, against the tender and flaking skin of his ankle. He can see, too, the link stretching out of shape, levered by the long spike in his guard's hands. The pain grows slowly from dull to the sharp digging of the edge of the cuff, and Will cannot restrain the pained whimper that creeps from his throat. It crashes against his closed teeth at least.

The link snaps before his bones do, a sudden incredible relief flooding him at the absence of pressure. The cuff only opens reluctantly on it's hinge, the iron stubborn with grime and rust.

Beneath the skin is torn and dirty, irritated pink and oozing where the cuff had cut and never let heal. His guard does not remark.

The second link seems to give more easily, but perhaps it is only the blood song the gods put into the ears of wounded warriors on the battlefield. Certainly Will's heart is beating faster, his blood seeming to hum in his veins. He has not been free of shackles in a very long time.

His guard flexes his taxed fingers as he gets back to his feet, eyeing the shackles with disgust where they lay on the ground. The metal is dark, turning to red and flaking in places. Will suspects they were heavier than his guard had thought. Will hopes there will not be a new set for him at their destination. 

"Thank you," Will tells him, grateful though he knows it was only the fulfillment of an order. "Thank you, sir."

His guard snorts.

"I'm Fredrik," he says, without bothering to hide his bitterness. "No 'sir' about it."

It is not a common name. Will considers him again, the grey eyes, the slightly softer features. He is not, Will guesses, Ardik.

A slave or conscript from beyond the borders, then. Harmanic, perhaps. 

Fredrik hoists him to his feet, reaching down to offer Will his hands open-palmed. Will's fingers are bare, engulfed by the thick gloves Fredrik wears. The softness has gone from his eyes.

"Be no trouble. If you take advantage of his kindness with discourtesy," Fredrik warns - and Will knows he means the leader, Lagbrotna. He huddles into his borrowed cloak and heeds the rest of the warning.

"He will not be so quick to offer kindness again.

Will nods. He closes his eyes - the cloak is warm and heavy on his shoulders, and he feels for the truth of the words with his Sight. An image fills his mind of a raven in a very small cage. Its wings are clipped, it's belly is empty. The bird understands then, the extremes of difference between kindness and cruelty.

Dark fingers offer the bird sweet crumbs of bread, and it reaches meekly, brokenly, desperately through the bars to take them with great care. He feels the joy and gratitude in the bird's heart as if it were his own.

Will shudders, despite the furs.  
-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Skera - to cut, to sunder.  
> -Harmanic is probably roughly equivalent to the Germanic tribes. In this case, frequently at war with/raided by the Ardik and Surdik tribes for land/slaves/etc.  
> -Lagbrotna roughly translates to 'Fatebreaker'. More on this next chapter.  
> -Could not resist sulky Not Quite Viking Chilton. My apologies.


	3. óvíss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lagbrotna seems uninterested in him. Will is not sure if that is an affectation, or if the man intends to see to him in his own time. Perhaps he is so convinced of his own importance that he supposes Will to be only a symbolic trophy - a sign of victory over Einar's tribe.
> 
> He is not entirely certain how to feel about such a notion. Certainly he has been captured before - abducted, traded, sold, stolen. Always such greed had been immediately followed with demands.
> 
> The warlords - kind or cruel, rich or poor, warriors or diplomats, had all demanded he search their future with his Sight, certain he would see them victorious. 
> 
> This one asks nothing.

North they ride, and further north still. Will finds relief for his bare feet only by tucking them up carefully beneath the heavy cloak, riding often with it slung over his lap. He misses its weight around his shoulders when he does. The cold is not so relentless as it will be in the coming months.

In the north, this passes for the fall, before the hard, unrelenting freeze takes the land to white.

Now they ride through the grey-green sea of tall, coarse grass, the horses stepping high when it reaches past their knees to brush soft seed bearing fronds against their bellies. 

During the day, the sun can almost warm him where it touches his shoulders, but in the mornings and evenings his breath is alive with the clouds of cold. 

It streams back from all the horsemen and their mounts - there are nineteen with one loss in their raid. They are not dour, not cowed by fear. They ride with heads high, and often talk, brag to each other, speak familiarly as men do. Will sees a reverence in them, for their leader. Lagbrotna.

He rides astride Fredrik's horse as a matter of familiarity, behind the saddle now that he can sit astride the haunches of the animal. It is a bumping, jolting journey that leaves him sore. 

Lagbrotna seems uninterested in him. Will is not sure if that is an affectation, or if the man intends to see to him in his own time. Perhaps he is so convinced of his own importance that he supposes Will to be only a symbolic trophy - a sign of victory over Einar's tribe.

He is not entirely certain how to feel about such a notion. Certainly he has been captured before - abducted, traded, sold, stolen. Always such greed had been immediately followed with demands.

The warlords - kind or cruel, rich or poor, warriors or diplomats, had all demanded he search their future with his Sight, certain he would see them victorious. 

This one asks nothing.

"Why come all this way?" he asks Fredrik, on the second day. They ride ceaseless, but slow, confident in their lead.

The younger men serve as scouts occasionally, orbiting wide ahead and behind. There are two - Will has seen them bicker amicably about their respective competences. Thus far, neither has found any signs of pursuit or danger.

Fredrik glances over his shoulder at Will as if to indicate the obvious answer.

"You," he says simply.

"But why?" Will asks further, looking for Lagbrotna and finding him riding ahead.

He sits confident on his bay horse, eyes forward, looking out over the vast grass plains ahead. The sun touches his messy, loosening silver-brown braid and the wind stirs the loose ends that trail over his eyes, that brush against his cheeks. His eyes are shadowed at this distance, but the tilt of his chin is confident. He cannot own this land, but he already rides through it as if it were his.

Fredrik snorts. Will has come to know him a little. He is serious, much suffering in his own opinion. Will could perhaps like him. He was not cruel for the sake of cruelty, and he was honest.

"I couldn't say," Fredrik wonders aloud, as if at the mysteries of the very universe.

"He has not asked me to use the Sight," Will answers, his tone as carefully as dry as Fredrik's.

"Lagbrotna never rushes," comes his answer. "He has you, Will. Possesses you. There is nothing he fears enough to run desperately to your Visions for reassurance. Nothing can take you from him."

Fredrik pauses, considers.

He turns part way, with arched brows, making an allowance.

"Well, almost nothing."

Will does not ask clarification.

At mid-day they stop, watering the horses. Will walks carefully in the cold, sharp grass, mindful of his bare soles and the tender skin of his ankles. The kinks ease slowly from his thighs - he is not so used to riding as these men. 

Lagbrotna and Fredrik converse briefly, and the leader clasps a reassuring hand to Fredrik's shoulder, turning from him to Will at last, picking him from amongst the shapes of milling men unerringly. 

_At last_ , Will thinks, when the leader approaches. He is certain he will be called upon to See, even if the demand is small. They have always wanted to test his Sight, once they had him.

No matter how great the leader, they all needed some reassurance of what prize they had claimed.   
Instead, Lagbrotna pauses some few steps away and regards Will with that same measuring stare.

Without a word, he inclines his head, and Will is compelled to move toward him for no reason he could give. Lagbrotna beckons, he goes. It is wordless, implicit. 

It shames him to be so thoughtlessly obedient. Will approaches with reddened cheeks, with his hands clenched tight into the wolf skin cloak.

It is the lord who crouches before him, leaving Will stock still in surprise, speechless.

Lagbrotna examines the healing mess of skin at Will's ankles, and then lifts his eyes speculatively to the manacles at his wrists. Will sees him consider his release, the long moment of churning thought behind dark eyes. He lifts his gaze to Will's.

Some hunger in the blue depths of Will's eyes makes the decision for him - not today. _Not yet._

"They are healing well," he observes, rising to his feet to look down at Will again.

He is close enough to touch. He has not, not in the time since surrendering him to Fredrik's care. 

"If I don't lose them to the cold," Will retorts. 

The Ardik all wear heavy hide boots, bound calf to ankle with sheepskin for warmth.

"You should have brought shoes," Lagbrotna offers, mischievously amused.

"You gave me no time."

The warrior arches his brows, mouth twisting in a soft, victorious smile. Will had said, more or less, what the man wanted.

"You should have Seen."

Will could spit, the anger rising suddenly in him from where it had lain quiet beneath a pale anxiety he had no quite let fully in. The confusion of the last few days wells up. It nearly fills his breakers to bursting, leaving Will feeling warm, contrary to his words.

"I saw my own death," Will snarls, and he sees Lagbrotna's expression change slowly - from mirth to intentness, to intensity. "And you stole it from me."

It is an oath, a curse, an accusation. Lagbrotna weathers Will's anger, his face a twist of surprise. 

"You didn't See me?" he asks, slow, interested. Will closes his mouth and feels he has given too much, wonders if he has devalued himself as a prize. In the back of his mind, he discovers suddenly that it matters to him - where only days ago he had welcomed death when it came for him.

Lagbrotna waits until he shakes his head sullenly, unwilling to admit more. Will had not _looked_ , it was forgivable that he had not Seen.

It seems to be the answer Lagbrotna expects.

"Ride with me today," the lord commands. 

Will does not see that he has a choice.

He inclines his head with as much grace as he can manage, uncertain why his pride should feel so stung. 

He might have paid in coin to be left alone by any of the other lords who had owned and used him - if he had ever owned any coin. 

Lagbrotna's bay stallion is a strangely affable creature, for a war horse. It holds still for Lagbrotna to mount, turns its head as Will steps up, and only offers a single disapproving twist of his ears at the added burden of a second rider.

Will is surprised, when Lagbrotna lifts him onto the front of the saddle, over the withers of the horse rather than the haunches. He settles, and tries not to be aware of how much taller the lord is against his back, or the strong arms tucked beneath his own. The reins are curled in Lagbrotna's strong fingers somewhere near his belly.

He wonders, feeling Lagbrotna's hard chest against his back, if this awkwardness is what Fredrik has endured the last few days. 

Will decides it's unlikely. He was not a warrior, and it was only his thin garments, beneath the borrowed cloak that left him so aware.

The grass is so tall here it touches his ankles, even as he rides, and it moves in the slow breeze like a swelling, dull green ocean. It gives the impression that the riders around them are moving through the waves, wading or swimming across a sea to someplace unknown, some island they can't see on the horizon.

Lagbrotna speaks into his ear like a lover, startling Will.

"Soon this will be mine," he asserts, calm, assured.

Will does not laugh, though he could. It is not the first he's heard of confidence. It will not matter any more than it had for any of the lords before.

"Einar said much the same," Will says, keeping his eyes ahead. He does not think about the warmth of Lagbrotna's breath against his neck.

"There are sixteen Ardik tribes," Lagbrotna continues, as if he had not spoken. "And twenty who would call themselves Surdik."

The chuckle that follows teases against Will's ear. He fights a shiver, and tells himself it is the cold.

"Not all claims of lineage are valid."

Will shakes his head. It had been that way for years, since he was a boy. All vying to grab what they could and hold it before it could be taken from them. 

"Each blinded by the visions of what they could be, certain of what they _should_ be," the tone is soft, nearly seductive. "Heedless of how much they trample."

It is a history lesson Will does not need. He straightens his back, rides stiffly. He wishes he had not felt so eager that morning to know his purpose. 

He had already known it. 

"I will unite them," Lagbrotna says against his ear.

It isn't a question.

It's unusual to Will, to have his gift discarded, to be met with such confidence and no demand for reassurance in his Visions.

These words wake the memory of a familiar Sight, a recurring vision. Will sees a stag atop a hill, crowned in flames and blossoms. 

It stands in blood.

The vision has never yet meant anything. 

"You're no different from others who have failed," Will snarls, shaking himself like a horse with a fly to be free of the intimacy.

Lagbrotna sits straighter, allowing Will what space he can while they share a horse. Will risks a glare over his shoulder, seeing faint confusion at the hostility in his eyes.

He gathers the chain between his manacles in his fists and holds it until the links hurt his palms. The metal is numbingly cold, threatening to flake and cut. It grounds him, and he is grateful for it.

"May I ride with Fredrik again, Lord Lagbrotna?" he asks, his tone barely polite. Steely.

A laugh answers him. The tone is rich, bright. Genuine. Will thinks that he has perhaps _surprised_ the man, and that gives him pause.

"That isn't my name," he denies, against Will's ear again. 

Will restrains the urge to swat at him like a buzzing, errant insect, and finds he is out of surprise.

"Then what do I call you, if it's not what everyone else does?"

Will supposes it hardly matters. The man is a lord, a leader of men. Ambitious, cruel when needed. Like all the others.

"My name is Hannibal," he says.

Will does not answer but he hears, it settles into his awareness and stays, like the feeling of Hannibal's chest against Will's back.

He offers no further conversation. After mid-day he grants Will's request, having enough of the man's icy silence. Will is glad to be rid of him.

"Why does everyone call him Lagbrotna if that's not his name," he asks of Fredrik, safely behind his guard's saddle again.

He is mindful to no longer lean against the man, though it is colder to travel such.

"It's his title," Fredrik answers wryly, sparing a glance over his shoulder. "Like 'Seer' is yours."

Fredrik shrugs expansively. Will senses he is not so star struck by their leader as some of the men, though still curiously loyal. 

"It's what he is," Fredrik continues. "He breaks fate."

The words make little sense to Will until he pulls them apart in his mind. Not a name. Not one word but two - pushed together and made into a title.

Lag brotna.

Fate breaker.

Will cannot explain the cold uncertainty he feels at the knowledge. He opens his mouth for clarification, but Fredrik halts him.

"Ask him yourself," his guard tells him flatly. "Or See the answer, I don't care. I can't explain it to you." 

Will closes his mouth on the point of asking for more, and resolves not to.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -óvíss - Uncertain  
> -Our two young scouts are threatening to resolve themselves into some format of Price and Zeller. We'll see how that goes.


	4. heim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he can sleep, he dreams of a hill. Beneath, the plains are red, flowing, a pulsing tide of red water or blood. The air smells of it, copper and fire.
> 
> A point touches his back - a sword or a spear, and he does not feel fear. The daggers piercing will give him peace.
> 
> When he turns, there is no sword, but a tall black stag. Impossibly dark. So black, it drinks the very shadows dry. It was not a spear, but the tine of an antler he had felt.

The riders sleep beneath the open stars in bedrolls and heavy furs. They do not balk to share warmth, when the night is coldest.

Will does. He sits near the fires they dare instead, until the smoke leaves his throat raw and his eyes stinging. He is at least, warm. 

He is growing used to the rhythms of Hannibal's men. At dusk and dawn the scouts go - Ymir and Brunn. Will has learned their names, mostly through their bickering. Ymir has pale gold hair silvering ahead of it's time. Brunn, a mess of dark curls, a patchy beard that he is too old to suit. 

They rarely cease arguing, even as they settle down to share a warm closeness in the night. They fill each other's pauses, habitual, natural. An unceasing patter of faint irritation underlayed by affection, if one looked hard enough. 

The rest settle in threes and fours against the cold, even his acerbic guard Fredrik. Will suppose it to be practical, while he shivers.

At night, he is tied like the horses. Gently, in a way. He does not try to run, does not force them into stronger measures. 

Will has become patient in these years he has spent living in captivity. _There will be a time_ , he thinks, pulling absently at fronds of grass. _It is not yet._

When he can sleep, he dreams of a hill. Beneath, the plains are red, flowing, a pulsing tide of red water or blood. The air smells of it, copper and fire.

A point touches his back - a sword or a spear, and he does not feel fear. The daggers piercing will give him peace.

When he turns, there is no sword, but a tall black stag. Impossibly dark. So black, it drinks the very shadows dry. It was not a spear, but the tine of an antler he had felt.

Within the horns, blooming flowers. A braid of them, a woven chain, and they are aflame, petals curling black and becoming drifting embers that float, that ignite where they touch. They drift like fireflies, and the pinpricks of light reflect in the black pools of the beast's eyes.

He steps back. 

His feet sink in soft mud as he retreats, and then it grows wetter. Bloody water wells warm over his bare feet, getting deeper with each retreating step. 

The stag moves with him, burning antlers lowered as a goad. Coal sparks live in its eyes, ringing steel in its throat.

It is driving him, and Will is deep to his waist in blood, the smell choking him, the warmth sickening him.

The stag roars and warfare pours from its open mouth - clashing swords and the gasps of dying men. 

Will wakes, wet to his skin with sweat. The sun has not crowned the horizon. It is dark and silent, and his sweat turns quickly to ice against his skin.

The dream has never meant anything.

Will sits up, finding the weight of an extra pelt on his back, over the black cloak that has given him warmth on the journey. Lagbrotna - Hannibal - sits close at hand, drinking something steaming from a wooden cup.

His eyes are on Will, intent. He does not look away when Will's eyes meet his.

Will hugs the furs tighter to himself, working shaking fingers over his cold toes beneath them. He has not spoken to Hannibal in some days. Not since they had ridden together.

"You'd do better to brave the cold now and dry the sweat from your clothes while there's a fire," Hannibal advises, his tone low.

Will throws the furs angrily from his shoulders, knowing there is wisdom in the words. He puts his back to the fire and shivers, waiting for the warmth to penetrate.

"Did you dream?" Hannibal asks, "or did you See?"

"A dream," Will says firmly. "Nothing more."

Hannibal leaves it at that, his eyes on the lightening sky, turned toward the northern horizon. The grasslands have faded to rocky foothills, rolling onward ever now toward distant, gray mountains. It has become difficult riding, slower. 

On the slopes, the men let their horses pick the course.

"We will see home today," Hannibal says after a time. 

Will's answer is interrupted by the sound of galloping hooves. Hannibal stands to greet his returning scout.

Ymir, breathless. His sides heave like the grey flanks of his mount, but there is triumph in his eyes as he reports the readiness of their 'home' to receive them.

Home.

Will dismisses the word. Home was his chains, his visions, his duty. Home was himself, and only that.

He reports to a tired, weary looking Fredrik once the ties that had held him for the night are loosed. The man also sips something steaming and pleasant smelling, his hands wrapped around the bowl that holds it for warmth.

He has grown fond enough of Will somehow, or perhaps takes enough pity on him to offer a share.

It is surprisingly sweet, thick on his tongue and spiced. Will has had chocolate only once before and then by chance - it had been hard, waxy and solid but good. Now it is smooth liquid, warm, faintly honeyed on his tongue. 

He drinks what he is given of it and it warms him, eases and energizes him somehow. Will is grateful, but Fredrik only waves off his thanks. 

The day grows slower as it goes on, crawling beneath the skins of all the riders. They are irritable, road-weary, anxious to return to their own families and beds.

The ways grow steeper, until the riders dismount and lead, impatiently letting their horses pick the way.

For a time Will suffers the sharp, frigid stones before Hannibal stops him, picking his feet up to examine as one might a lamed horse. He does not approve of what he sees, frowning at how chill they are to his touch and a cut on the left foot.

Then, Will rides the tall bay horse alone, sitting properly in the saddle for once while Hannibal leads. 

If this is the best southern approach, their settlement must be well warded against raiders. It is thoughtful, careful.

He hears them top the rise at last and come to the sight of their home before he sees it himself. His eyes are on Hannibal's back, on the way he picks his trail over the stones and yet never grows tense when they shift beneath his feet. His fingers are looped only loosely through the reins.

Would he be different here? Will wonders if the lord - the Lagbrotna - has a wife, a family. 

He resigns himself to further servitude, to what must inevitably follow. He will be a tool, a soothing balm for confident souls. 

When he looks up over the rise where Hannibal is leading them, he finds himself impressed.

It is not merely a raider's camp, but nearly a city, built and fortified atop a plateau that surveys all beneath it. A wooden wall secures it, threatening to break anyone who threw themselves upon this place - if the cold or rocky approach did not first thwart them. He can see that the base of the plateau itself is fortified, a forest of sharpened stakes that limit access to only one side, a narrow road that would be hard to assail that leads to the summit and the settlement.

"It must become impassible in winter," he observes, unable to keep all traces of awe from his tone.

Hannibal smiles.

"And here is the wisdom of my timing," he informs Will, bragging some. "The snows ride hard after us and will close the way behind us."

Will swallows, tasting the truth of his words in the cold air. The feeling is one of sinking, like it had been in his dreams.

"No one who follows us will ever succeed in gaining the rise," Hannibal continues, leading his horse slowly down the path into the valley surrounding his city.

Below, Will can hear the deep sounds of horns warning and welcoming as the warriors top the rise and begin the descent after them. It is a low sound that touches him to his bones, resonating in his chest, almost beyond hearing.

"You'll be safe with me."

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -heim: home, or homewards.  
> -Ymir is as close to Jimmy as I could really get. Brunn simmilarly, Brian. I snuck in some Preller for you fine folks, because it tickles me.  
> -I took some liberties with the hot chocolate. This stuff is more in line with the sort that Aztecs or southern american natives drank at the time, but I can do what I want. Vikings pretty much drank beer (the weakened version of the era), mead, or milk. Apparently they loved milk! But it was only a seasonal drink - only in the spring when their cattle and goats were having young. The more you know.


	5. ǫr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is near dark when they gain the city, though the streets are lit by blazing torches. Men and children stand along the streets, crowding, the littlest held aloft or hoisted onto the shoulders of the men to see.
> 
> "For this," Hannibal tells him, lifting Will down off the horse and onto his own two feet and affixing a long line to the chain between his manacles, "I am sorry."

It is near dark when they gain the city, though the streets are lit by blazing torches. Men and children stand along the streets, crowding, the littlest held aloft or hoisted onto the shoulders of the men to see.

"For this," Hannibal tells him, lifting Will down off the horse and onto his own two feet and affixing a long line to the chain between his manacles, "I am sorry."

Will is not certain why he feels so strong a sinking, disappointed sensation in his belly. When Hannibal affixes the other end of the long rope to the pommel of his saddle and swings up onto his horse, he knows what is coming.

He is not certain why he had hoped that this time would be any different. That he would not be made a public trophy to celebrate, a signal of status.

"I don't believe you," he tells Hannibal, as the other swings up onto his horse. He is not sorry - or he will not be, when the cheering starts. Hannibal makes no answer other than to turn his horse.

Will sees him draw an unfamiliar sword from amongst his things, carrying it bare and flat across his palms, as if in reverence. It is not Hannibal's sword - that still hangs at his hip. A strange custom.

Will resists only the very first unyielding tug, until the manacles scrape bloody furrows on his wrists. Then he goes, because his other option is to be dragged.

The rest of the party arrays themselves behind Hannibal and his prize. At least Hannibal keeps his horse to a slow, steady walk. It does not rush Will - nor does it deny anyone the sight of him, captive, subject.

Where he passes, the crowds cheer Lagbrotna, and Will plays his part as the conquered, as the captured prize and hard won. He sees little of the city, though the roads - he keeps his eyes on the cobble stones - are paved and even. They are dug in the style of Imperium, set with squared stones, and the hooves of the horses make sharp noises around him.

When they stop suddenly, all in a disciplined unison that is greeted with silence from the cheering crowd, Will looks up at last. 

A woman stands in the center of the street, holding the whole procession by standing in front of Hannibal, looking up at him. There is a demand in her eyes, a mixture of earnest injury and pale hopefulness on her young features. She is looking at the sword in her lord's hands.

He lifts it with careful ceremony before he presents it to her.

The woman looks at it as if she would deny it existed at all. Will can see that she is young, her features not previously touched or lined with grief. She has the long, brown hair of a maiden, straight and glossy.

She is pretty, or would be if she were not experiencing the slow implosion of her world. 

The girl does not reach for the sword, though Hannibal holds it out patiently, clearly intending for her to have it. 

Instead she turns her gaze on Will, furious. Her eyes rake him, pin him down and take every account of him. He can feel her gaze on his skin, can sense the exact moment that she judges him a poor prize.

Will does not understand when she knocks the sword from Hannibal's hands to land ringing on the stone road.

Hannibal hesitates a moment, but accepts the action as her answer, urging his mount onward again, leaving both the girl and the sword in the street.

The girl spits at Will's feet when he passes, and he finds himself turning back to try and make sense of the matter.

She stoops in the road and picks up the sword. There are no cheers for the procession now, and the horses hoof beats are loud in the silence.

He measure his own steps against time with them, and then closes his eyes and reaches for his other Sight.

Seeing the future is easy, in a way. It reaches out for will, trying to draw him forward. It is always welcoming, dangerously sweet. His mother had once told him it was so for all Seers, but that the gift was double edged. One should not reach so often into the future that they began to live there.

The past is more difficult. It is set, a stone wall to the loose weave of the future, a single solid line. Will feels along the edges of the barrier with his awareness, keeping his focus on the girl and the sword before he finds his way through. 

He sees a man and a young girl hunting together, raising their bows in unison. The girl is younger even than she is now, but stoic, composed. She takes her lesson seriously. Will cannot hear what the man says, when he leans down to her, he observes from some yards away. Ahead of them.

They are aiming their bows at him. 

Patiently, the man waits for the girl to loose her shot while Will stands, frozen and uncertain. She firms her mouth before she fires, talking herself into it.

The arrow flies. Her father smiles. The scene changes.

The next is much later, familiar. Will stands outside his tent in his iron shackles, and he is again in the place of prey. The world is silent, light jumping crazily and pulling his eyes. A man holds a torch aloft, lighting the tents of the confused encampment. An arrow finds him, as if shot from his own past.

Will stumbles, gasping awake from his vision, catching himself against the haunches of the bay stallion. He finds that he is alone with Hannibal, in a small courtyard between two long, low houses. There is a stable here, for the horse. Hannibal leans on the saddle, patient, watching Will curiously. The other end of the rope through Will's chain is held loosely in his hands. 

"Where did you go?" Hannibal asks, interested - so he did have a taste for Will's gift.

"The girl," he explains."Her father died in the raid?"

Hannibal cocks his head and nods, impressed.

"She does not find me a prize worth the exchange," Will observes, darkly. He does not find the assessment false. 

"No girl happily trades her father for a sword," Hannibal answers. It is hardly revelatory. 

"Will you let me unsaddle Kanin?" Hannibal asks then. As if Will is preventing him - or he needs Will's permission.

He follows Hannibal's gaze when it drops down to the lead in his hands, and Will realizes he's being asked if he will behave - or if he will try to run.

He finds himself too exhausted for even a cursory effort at resistance. 

"There's no place to go," he answers, lowering his hands. "And I'd like to rest as much as you would."

Hannibal extends his hand in a beckoning motion, a curling sweep of all his fingers that compels Will closer. He unties the loop of rope from his chains, and coils it loosely.

"The horse is named Kanin?" Will asks, moving out of the way. He is not sure why he finds it so amusing.

Hannibal looses the girth, making an affirmative noise. He hoists the saddle from the animal's back and onto a wooden rack designed to receive it. 

"Yes," Hannibal answers, simply. 

"Like... rabbit?"

Will tries the word in another form, to be certain he has not missed the slang for another meaning.

"Like rabbit," Hannibal agrees. He reaches up to remove the bridle after stroking affectionately along the stallion's neck. He lifts it over Kanin's ears, and the horse drops the bit obediently into his waiting palm, seeming glad to be free of it. 

"Can I ask why?" Will finds himself smiling at the notion of a fierce war horse named after so unintimidating a creature. He is curious before he can stop himself. 

Hannibal wipes the worst of the slobber from the bit, cleaning it with a rag so it will not take rust. The motion is slow, and Hannibal's eyes are settled on Will, his expression both surprised and pleased by him reaching out.

"When he was little," Hannibal answers, rewarding Will's involvement with kindness. "He hopped everywhere. On all four legs - like a rabbit." 

Will trades a look with the tall, severe looking stallion, as if to measure the story against the subject. He finds he believes it. Even this stalwart war horse must have once been a leggy colt with too much energy.

"And," Hannibal continues, pulling wills attention back unexpectedly as he continues. He hangs the bridle on a peg. "He sired twenty foals last year, our Rabbit."

Will cannot decide if it is a joke or not, but he laughs anyway, weary as he is.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -ǫr - arrow  
> -Kanin - Is actually the danish, swedish and norwegian form of Rabbit, I couldn't find it in norse, but i'm assuming that if it's the same word in those three languages it's probably got a common ancestor that stretched far enough back that I can use this version.  
> -And of course we have Abigail appearing in this chapter and wanting nothing to do with Will. Who can really blame her.


	6. flík

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Hannibal gives him is still a prison, but it is his own at least. A space he does not have to share, not even with his lord.
> 
> That the door locks, that the window is high and small, these are lesser matters. The bed, a woven mat suspended cleverly off the floor and padded with wool, is welcoming and warm. No one can enter without first unlocking the door, and it feels strangely secure to know he will hear anyone before they enter.
> 
> He sleeps the first night deep and well, warm beneath his furs and against the softness of the bed. He does not dream.

Will has never been given his own room. 

At times, a private tent. More often, it had been insisted that he share quarters with the lord himself. It was easier to keep track of him, when he was in their field of vision. Twice, he had found himself housed among the other slaves of a tribe. Once, with the horses.

He is glad not to repeat the experience, even seeing how well the animals are provided for here.

What Hannibal gives him is still a prison, but it is his own at least. A space he does not have to share, not even with his lord.

That the door locks, that the window is high and small, these are lesser matters. The bed, a woven mat suspended cleverly off the floor and padded with wool, is welcoming and warm. No one can enter without first unlocking the door, and it feels strangely secure to know he will hear anyone before they enter.

He sleeps the first night deep and well, warm beneath his furs and against the softness of the bed. He does not dream.

When he wakes, the smell of cooking food fills the air - real food, he thinks. Meat and eggs and peppery spices, luring him from slumber. He rouses slowly, feeling an ache blossom along all his long bones. His calves and thighs are sore from riding, his arms from being led. One manacle has pressed a sore impression of itself into the skin over Will's ribs.

It is this that drives him from bed at last, and he pulls his shirt over his head as far as he can, letting it hang from the chain on his manacles while he washes.

Hannibal's house is part hall, likely where the rest of the men in the city gathered to talk, to celebrate, to drink to the gods. It is longer than it is wide, as all the houses Will had seen were. Squared, rough hewn beams support a peaked roof, bare boards made from light colored, sweet-smelling wood form the walls.

Will's room is closed, held between two of the tall beams supporting the ceiling, and with the side of the long house forming the back wall.

Practical. Neat.

What he'd seen of the rest of the house was much the same, plain wooden surfaces of the walls hung with warm rugs and blankets to keep in the heat. The floor is packed and swept dirt, and at the center, running the whole length of the hall, a dug out pit lined in stone. Coals live there, and fires at times, Will thinks. The house is warm from it, and he is grateful.

He makes do to bathe with the water he had been left to drink, doubting he will be expected to ration it.

The skin at his ankles is pink and tender but whole. Healing. He does not miss the weight there. Beneath the manacles he is still red and raw, scabbed from his resistance to the procession. He rinses there carefully, and the water runs pink and dirty back into the bowl. The manacles confine him, too, into his thin shirt, long since gone grimy with contact to his skin. 

He only minds in moments he feels more human. He only minds when he is alone.

Will pulls the shirt back on over wet skin. 

He is not certain what he is allowed, but there is little in the room to occupy him. He surely cannot be expected to spend his time waiting with nothing to do. Will might have believed that in other camps, of other lords, but he somehow does not believe it of Hannibal.

He leans into the door, listening. The smell of food grows stronger, and his belly makes a hollow noise of desire. Will raps his knuckle against the wood panel for attention, listening for a sign that he has been heard.

Will steps back when he hears the heavy iron key in the door, before it swings open. He is surprised to see Fredrik filling the doorway, and not Hannibal, but does his best to keep it to himself. 

"Come and eat," Fredrik offers, after a moment of awkward quiet passes between them. The key disappears into a pouch at the small of his back, beneath his shirt. "I thought you would never wake. Ymir will be pleased he won his bet."

Will settles at a wooden table, i a hard chair worn sooth in the seat with use. 

"Bet?" he asks, uncertainly. 

"Brunn bet that you would sit in your room until you half starved," Fredrik informs him. "Ymir argues that you'd have sense enough to seek food at the very least."

Will accepts a wooden plate laden with eggs, a thick wheat porridge, meat in thin slices, gravy, and a heel of hard bread. The food is hot and fresh. Will eats gratefully while Fredrik talks, settled opposite Will at the table. He holds a mug of ale between his hands, eschewing water for it. 

"Ymir won a silver dagger and his way free of Fish duty this week."

"Fish duty?" Will wonders if they've come so far as to be near the ocean.

Fredrik mimes splitting a fish with a knife, and then a gesture that is nearly lewd for retrieving the guts. Will understands. 

"Do they really think me that insensible?" Will asks.

"They need something new to bet on," Fredrik offers, placating. "And they have never been property."

Will supposes that statement to mean that Fredrik has. He is not sure if he dares to ask the details.

"Fredrik," he asks, and the man senses the coming change in the conversation, watching Will over the rim of his mug.

"Why did he come for me?" Will asks. "Why ride so far and risk lives when he has no use for visions?"

"Ask _him_ ," Fredrik insists. 

"He isn't here," Will says, forgetting to be subservient. "I'm asking you."

"I'm here to see that you don't starve," Fredrik tells him, grey eyes not fully amused, but they are not yet touched with anger. Will bets he is also here to see that Will makes no attempt to escape, but he does not argue against Fredrik on the matter.

"And to officiate a bet."

Will sighs, exasperated.

He eats hurriedly, finds himself more hungry than he expected. The food feels warm and solid in his stomach, and leaves him on the verge of tired.

"Am I to be confined again?" he asks, when he's done. "Or will you tell me where I can find Hannibal so I may ask him my questions."

"He'll find you, when they need answering."

Will glares, rising to his teet with a jingle of chain.

"In the meantime, you're stuck with me," Fredrik continues, blandly.

"But you won't answer my questions."

"No." Fredrik agrees, finishing his drink with a long pull. He stands at his leisure, clearly pleased to find someone waiting on his whim for once.

Will gestures with exaggerated grace that Fredrik should proceed him. Outside, the town is quiet. Nearly idyllic. There are many such long houses as Hannibal's, some on a smaller scale. Rugged, permanent. Will is unused to such comfort, amongst the warlike tribes he has known. Tents and huts, certainly, but always with the thought of mobility. 

He follows Fredrik through the cobbled streets, eyes open now that there was no one to gawk at him. Men go about their business, heads high. Children run, anxious to be wherever it is they are going. Once, a cacophony of hoof beats draws his attention, and he sees Ymir and Brunn herding a group of horses through the street for the back of the town - to graze them, perhaps, on the last grasses before the snows came. He lifts his hand.

Ymir elbows Brunn, and displays his hand then, palm flat, demanding. A wager won.

Overhead, the sky is the palest grey, one indiscernible, unending plain of clouds, threatening to bring snow just behind them, as Hannibal had predicted. 

The stones are very cold beneath his feet, and his clothes feel too thin over his skin. 

"Will you tell me where we're going at least?" he asks, crossing his arms against his middle for warmth.

"Shoes," Fredrik answer,with a glance down at Will's feet. "And proper clothing, such as we can."

"Will you take the manacles off?" Will asks, hopeful.

"We'll work around them."

There is something near to compassion in Fredrik's answer. "They'll know how."

There are two women who serve as masters of stores, and Fredrik surrenders Will to their merciless care, deigning to wait outside.

He finds himself stripped, shivering, uncomfortable while they take the measures of him. The thin linen shirt is cut from his manacles and discarded, his protests ignored.

They replace it with a nearly shapeless but tight tube of cloth, pulling it over his raised arms. Over that, a sort of vest made of heavy animal hide - black and shaggy, but he cannot discern if it is wool or bearskin. It has not been sewn at the sides. It is considerate, and in combination with the new, heavier breeks and thick, hard-soled boots, Will finds himself warm and shod, with his tender ankles wrapped in spare linen to keep them healing. 

The store mistresses look him over once, appraising, and bundle a second set of clothes into his arms, the clothes he had come with never to be seen again. Then they loose him back into Fredrik's care, with a warning to return if he gets too cold.

"Now you look as if you could survive the snows," Fredrik observes.

"Perhaps," will allows. His shoulders and arms are bare, save the heavy iron at his wrists. There is little to be done about it, save perhaps to wrap them in cloth. "Wouldn't it be less trouble-"

He starts, and then simply shakes the chain instead of finishing the question. If it were gone, he could dress himself without special garments or unusual requirements. 

"In time," Fredrik says. "Lagbrotna does not rush."

It is another thing to ask about, WIll supposes. 

Fredrik returns him to Hannibal's house, where warm smoke curls up from the opening in the roof - the fires built up within.

He steps into the warmth of the house and finds Hannibal, returned from whatever errand had kept him.

The warlord scrutinizes Will, eyes surveying the handiwork done on his orders, lingering where his skin is bare. Will finds he does not remember what his questions were, and when he turns for support, Fredrik has not followed him inside.

Old, familiar dread wakes in Will, born of long captivity. The line of possession was a dangerous one, and thin. He wondered if here, where his very purpose was in question, it did not grow thinner still. 

"Is it warm enough?" Hannibal asks at last, his dark eyes finally returning to meet Will's.

"With the cloak it will be, my lord," he answers, guardedly.

Hannibal only accepts his answer and turns away, seemingly uninterested beyond Will's wellbeing. And yet, Will had thought he'd seen...

He retreats to his room in safety, and settles on the suspended bed, reaching for his Sight like a comforting warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- flík, a rag  
> -Will's top is something akin to a Haramaki. Think, essentially, a tube top of a sorts. His clothing options are pretty limited with his hands joined together in chains.  
> -Sorry this is not a terribly exciting chapter. The next one is more interesting, and should be around in the next couple days. :)


	7. bruni

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will measures his breaths in slow counts of five, letting his awareness of his surroundings fade. It is this lowering of his guard that is the worst part of Seeing, the stillness in his soul requiring a certain defenselessness that he has not welcomed since childhood.
> 
> When he feels calm, Will collects his focus, training it on his captor. He think of Hannibal as he had first met him, a great dark shape in heavy furs. An unknown figure he had not forseen. 
> 
> But when he slides the fingers of his awareness along the strands of Hannibal's fate they slide off. Though it runs straight where he can 'see' it, alongside his own without seeming to intersect. There is no purchase to be had on Hannibal's future, though Will reaches again and again, stubborn, unused to failure. Unwilling to admit it.

Will measures his breaths in slow counts of five, letting his awareness of his surroundings fade. It is this lowering of his guard that is the worst part of Seeing, the stillness in his soul requiring a certain defenselessness that he has not welcomed since childhood.

When he feels calm, Will collects his focus, training it on his captor. He think of Hannibal as he had first met him, a great dark shape in heavy furs. An unknown figure he had not forseen. 

But when he slides the fingers of his awareness along the strands of Hannibal's fate they slide off. Though it runs straight where he can 'see' it, alongside his own without seeming to intersect. There is no purchase to be had on Hannibal's future, though Will reaches again and again, stubborn, unused to failure. Unwilling to admit it. 

When frustration drags him back from his efforts at last, his door has been closed and no light shows beneath it. His window reveals only dark and stars. Set inside his room, atop the low chest of drawers that had been emptied for Will to place his meager wardrobe into, a bowl waits. 

He eats the cold stew and considers his dilemma.

There was something in Hannibal - in Lagbrotna - that resisted Will's gift. But no man could exist entirely outside the influence of others.

He devises a different plan, setting his empty bowl aside. 

This time, peace comes faster, confidence lending him clarity. He does not reach for the thread of Hannibal's fate but slides his awareness along his own, instead.

It is dangerous, a little. Easier to loser yourself this way. Will's fate feels like an old, familiar passageway. It opens wide and welcomes him down into something warm, the sensation equal parts opening and being opened.

He finds himself in darkness again, momentarily confused.

The warm readiness of need rises up under his skin like the tide lifting to the moonlight, his pulse quick, his mouth opening to pull in air. The desire descends hard into him, the emotion so strong it drags him with it into the depths of his Vision.

Warm fingers run over his body, bared in the familiar feeling darkness. There is the bed beneath him, furs touching his skin along the whole length of his back. Hands stroke Will's belly, touching soft, responsive skin. His blood seems alive with it, rushing beneath the touches in time with his rapid heartbeat. 

He is achingly hard, can feel the jut of his cock into the cool air, desperate for touch. The knowledge shames and excites him further at the same time. He welcomes the stroking of his skin, arching into them, somewhere between begging and demanding more contact, wanting to be touched lower, _more_. Will has never felt so strong a want, never felt desire run coursing in his veins.

His hands seek, untangling from the warm pelts below him to seek purchase on the body over his own. His fingers graze along strong arms, up over curved shoulders. They tangle into a messy braid of hair that has sprung half free with earlier abuse, and it grows looser still in his grip. 

He realizes then, remembering himself even as he moans the name aloud, _pleading_ -

"Hannibal," 

That is what throws Will, dislodging him violently from the vision even as he comes to know what he is begging for - that it is not the first time between them. Will knows, for a moment, that his body responds so eagerly because it has known this before, enjoyed these touches to their fullest.

It leaves Will flustered and fevered in the dark, sweating with the remembered longing and exertion of his vision. He strips his strange shirt quickly, throwing the blanket off to expose his body to the cool air from the window until heat abandons him. It leaves him shivering, awake, wary.

In the pit of his stomach, Will feels the tight knot of sickness at it - not the knowledge of the deed itself, so often a threat in his years as a captive token. It is the _welcome_ he had felt in his own heart for it. The lack of all fear, the willingness - it is all this which had unsettled him most.

With his teeth chattering, his body burning the nervous electric feeling of too much energy, Will slowly begins to feel better.

The room feels too small, then. Too confining. He cannot face returning to his bed, it would feel traitorous against his skin. Though he knows better, he tries the door, finding it locked. A rare fear claims him then. He tries to hold it before he finds himself battering the door with his body, keeps his desperation to helpless scratching at the wood.

It sounds like an animal to his ears, seeming to echo within him and resonate with that small, scampering creature his sanity is threatening to become. He has known himself to be the utter opposite of his nature, and the sudden shock of it leaves him desperate to know someone else.

He could not say how long he keeps at it, but his fingers are sore, and the rattling of chain at his wrists has grown loud when the door swings open unexpectedly. 

Hannibal is as ruffled with sleep as Will is from his lack of it, bare chested beneath the blanket he holds around his shoulders with one hand. He is wary - perhaps that Will should try to escape - but not angry. He does not shout for Will to be quiet, does not demand his sleep to be left undisturbed.

Instead of more anxiety, even at the sight of Hannibal, even in the wake of his vision, Will feels his tension ease some. Hannibal is dark-eyed with sleep, his braid undone and hair tousled with slumber. It is so normal, so guileless, that Will's heart eases.

What he had Seen had not yet come to pass. He could stop it. He knew now, to see it coming. 

"Are you alright?" Hannibal asks, his tone quiet. It is not a demand.

"A dream," Will explains.

Hannibal knows better, from his lingering glance at Will.

"I cannot sleep again so soon after nightmares, my lord," Will finds himself explaining, giving the truth as an apology for waking Hannibal. "May I sit up a while?"

When Hannibal steps back out of the doorway, swinging the panel wide to let Will pass, the dim light catches strangely at Hannibal's wrist. Will turns his gaze as he passes to be certain of what he sees.

On the arm uplifted to hold the heavy blanket in place at Hannibal's throat, a wide band of scar tissue mars the skin, leaving it gathered and puckered alternating with patches of unnatural smoothness. 

Will stops short, turning his head further to see the other wrist.

Hannibal seems to know what Will is seeking intuitively, displaying his other arm. It is a match to the first, a pair of marks Will cannot mistake - the ones growing beneath his own manacles now are near matches. He would guess Hannibal had worn his longer, or with fiercer resistance.

Will looks up at him then, as uncertain how to guess at his past as he was on the difficult subject of Hannibal's future. 

"Come and sit," Hannibal suggests, leaving the door to Will's room open, giving him the choice to retreat there, if he needs to. 

Will takes the seat he had occupied at breakfast, beginning a routine. It settles him, though it is only barely familiar.

Hannibal rouses the sleeping coals in the fire pit, feeding a pair of cut logs into it to heat the iron pot he sets over them. He pours water into it, adding two handfuls of dried flowers and leaves, and letting it heat.

When Will does not ask - hypnotized somewhat by the firelight, but Hannibal's steady presence and his thoughts of fingers on skin - Hannibal at last volunteers the information. He settles across the table from Will, laying his hands flat to display the scars.

Will folds his own hands together with the length of chain pressed between his palms. He traps them in place with his knees, forbidding himself to reach out and feel his future mapped in flesh, there.

"I was born in the Imperium," Hannibal reveals, and Will thinks of the touches of it he has seen here - the intelligence of the defenses, the impeccable streets. 

"I served twenty years in the city, and ten on the sands, at the pleasure of the Emperor."

Will looks up, then. He does not know the Imperium outside of whispered stories. The furthest Surdik tribes sometimes dared raids, but none would wage war. None would risk drawing the wrath of Empire northward.

"What sands?" Will asks.

He realizes, then, that with all of his travel, with all he has seen and done, the world is a vaster place still. 

"In high Imperium there are cities so vast you cannot ride through them in a day," Hannibal describes, his eyes distant in memory. "For every man there are three slaves. And in the eyes of the man, slaves are _kykr feigr_ \- alive, but belonging to death." 

Will listens as the water heats, steaming, boiling against the sides of the pot. The leaves let off a faint sweet smell as they unfold slowly in the pot.

"When the men grow bored - or wish to celebrate, they gather together those slaves that can fight."

Will can guess the rest. Those that belong to death are given to it. He has seen how men will watch tamed violence, how it captures them like nothing else.

"You fought other slaves?" he asks, to be certain.

Hannibal nods.

"Until they grew bored of wagering against me." Hannibal's tone is mild, it is not a boast.

"They do not have the Sight in Imperium," he says, getting up, drawing a dipper full of hot tea for each of them into cups. Will drinks and is soothed.

"And if they did, they would not believe in it."

The tea is warm,spreading comfort and lassitude to Will's limbs. Within his cup a yellow bud floats, one white petal. 

"And fatebreakers?" he asks, looking up again to catch Hannibal's gaze. "Do they have those?"

Hannibal smiles, slowly, against the rim of his cup.

"Not anymore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -bruni 'heat'. Couldn't stop myself, sorry.  
> -Imperium would be roughly equivalent to the Roman empire - still in an expansion phase in this universe.  
> -Sorry for the tease. I figured you'd waited long enough without even a taste.... so there's a taste for you in this chapter.


	8. hirða

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You don't need to help," he says, reaching out to stop Will's hand from dispensing the last scoop - more than Kanin needs, apparently.
> 
> "And what is my other option?" Will asks, wondering only as he says it if the tone will get him into trouble. "I don't need to be locked in my room all day, either, nor babysat by Fredrik."
> 
> Hannibal arches his brows slowly, quiet until Will finishes.
> 
> He does feel better to have vented his frustrations, but with Hannibal's severe attention on him, he feels he must have at last mis-stepped beyond what is allowed.
> 
> "And who would you prefer as your keeper, Will?" Hannibal asks.

The next day the skies have opened, and cold heavy snow drifts down, settling like a blanket on the town. It is as if the gods are laying a finality on Will's stay.

Hannibal does not leave him to do nothing, then. Will pulls on his cloak - the great black thing with wolf's ears that seemed his by commonality, and helps Hannibal.

The whole town is working then, making changes to ward the snow from their mangers and stables. Hannibal hangs blankets along the open walls of Kanin's stall to help keep the horse warm. 

Will breaks a rime of ice on his water trough to empty it and fill it fresh. The horse watches him with a dark, tolerant eye.

Neither he nor Hannibal speak. Will watches how Hannibal works and does something complimentary, following his lord's lead, trusting he will be corrected if he goes wrong. Hannibal has an inherent neatness - a sort of sense for the best order to complete tasks in, but he is not needlessly fussy, either. 

When he reaches for the wooden grain bin to find Will already measuring an amount out into Kanin's trough, a small smile appears on his features.

"You don't need to help," he says, reaching out to stop Will's hand from dispensing the last scoop - more than Kanin needs, apparently.

"And what is my other option?" Will asks, wondering only as he says it if the tone will get him into trouble. "I don't need to be locked in my room all day, either, nor babysat by Fredrik."

Hannibal arches his brows slowly, quiet until Will finishes.

He does feel better to have vented his frustrations, but with Hannibal's severe attention on him, he feels he must have at last mis-stepped beyond what is allowed.

"And who would you prefer as your keeper, Will?" Hannibal asks.

Will hadn't been expecting the question.

"Someone who will answer what I ask of them," He says at last, feeling his own argument suddenly unreasonable.

Hannibal picks up his saddle and bridle, and for a moment Will thinks he means to ride in this weather. To cut the argument down by refusing to have it.

It would not be the first Will has lost by beginning on uneven footing.

Hannibal simply hoists the saddle over one shoulder to carry and thrusts the bridle into Will's hand.

"I cannot answer what you have not asked me," he says, damnably logical, before leaving the stable altogether.

For a moment, he and Kanin are alone, and the stallion turns his head from his departing master back to Will.

He takes it that he has been charged with carrying the bridle, and the mettle rings and bit clank against the chains of his cuffs as he trots to catch up.

"What?" Will asks.

"Come inside where it is warm," Hannibal tells him, holding the door to the house open. "At the first snow, we clean our tack and bring it in, so the cold does not crack the leather."

Will proceeds him into the house, still carrying the bridle.

"Help me clean it," Hannibal continues, kicking snow from his boots and frowning at the slush Will's are leaving on the floor.   
"And I will answer your questions."

His eyes come up to meet Will's, and for a moment Will is trapped in them. At the back of his mind a knowledge of Hannibal's touch on his body makes a slow, sluggish motion beneath Will's thoughts.

Hannibal is gauging if Will considers the offer fair. He supposes it is likely as fair as he can expect to get. He is also blocking the doorway.

"Why did you come after me?" he asks - first. Nearly demanding an answer without thinking about anything but _knowing_.

Hannibal shifts the saddle on his shoulder, looking once, blandly, at Will. Then he lifts his gaze pointedly past Will's shoulder into the house. His house. Where he will not be standing in falling snow.

Will steps aside to let him in.

"You have two values, Will," Hannibal explains, closing the door again. He rests the saddle on the table. "One that has been assigned to you by those who covet what other men have. In your case, it is double edged. They covet your gift, but also the total possession of you."

Hannibal fetches two horsehair brushes and flat, well used cakes of soap and bees wax.

He glances up at Will as he sets them within reach on the table to be sure Will agrees with his point.

"Your second value is what you actually are."

It is hardly a revelation.

"So I am here to make other men cover what you have." It is not quite a question, and he is unable to be less than bitter about it.

"You are here," Hannibal corrects him, ending the statement on a truncation. Will feels outrage rise in his chest - it was not what he wanted to hear.

"Why? You promised an answer."

Hannibal works the straps of the saddle loose, disassembling the breast strap, the front and rear girths. He lays the component pieces out deliberately.

"You called out to me," Hannibal says, stemming Will's anger by jamming it up, re-routing his logic down a new path. "I came. You're here."

Will stares at him, and for a brief moment wonders if Hannibal is mad - if beneath the darkness and quiet, his mind is gone.

"How did I call you?" he manages at last.

Hannibal meets his gaze, reaching out. He lifts the bar of soap, setting it deliberately closer to Will.

"When you refused to use what you were given to control your fate," Hannibal explains. "I felt it."

"Is that what 'fatebreaker' means?" Will works the brush against the hard soap, dipping it in water to gain a frothy, rich lather.

"In a way," Hannibal temporizes. He cleans leather with brisk strokes, as if by rendering his attention there the question would become easier to answer. "But not always."

The bridle is slippery in Will's hands, but he works it until he sees the last of the grime emerge from the stitching. 

"What is it then, exactly?" he asks. 

Hannibal works his lower lip between his teeth, trying to put words to a difficult concept. 

"When I am called - when there is something I can change," he begins, then falters, reaching for words. "It is... as if a fist clenches at the center of my chest."

Will listens, intently, without fully understanding. Hannibal glances up, meeting Will's gaze. He sees his explanation is not sufficient.

"It pulls and squeezes, directing like a hand on the shoulder, only a thousand times deeper," he tries again. "It is more apt to say, perhaps, like a bridle on a horse. Irresistible save with supreme effort." 

Will nods.

"And it pulled you to me?" 

"It pulled me between you and lord Einar," Hannibal allows, sounding amused.

"Why?" 

Hannibal looks up, tilting his chin just a little, speculative. Will realizes that the man does not have an answer - or one that is complete, anyway. 

"That question, I can't answer," he says, after a moment. "But perhaps you can."

Will supposes that he could, but he has yet to fully acknowledge it. He shakes his head, evading giving an answer.

"How do you know what to do?" he asks, wiping the bridle clean with a damp cloth, taking off the last of the soap. "IF you can't see the future, how do you know what to change?"

Hannibal shakes his head, almost a toss, his loose bangs sliding over his eyes as he works - he doesn't. 

Will tries to find a handle on the notion, of being led blindly, commanded without clarity. Of leading others with confidence when he himself did not always know the way. It speaks of a faith, of an _ability_ for faith that Will cannot comprehend.

"Then how did you know what I was?"

Hannibal looks up, making a gesture toward Will with the brush in his hand.

"Your eyes," he explains. "The chains."

Will supposes he had been setting himself up for so simple an answer.

"You didn't know what you came looking for?"

Will's chains jingle against the bit as he cleans it, finding crusted foam in the joins and crevices.

"I was looking for you," Hannibal corrects. It is a circular logic. 'It was known that Einar had you. I did not know I was aiming a stone at only one bird."

He smiles a little then, glancing up.

"You're here. My men found it easier to ride forth with a goal in mind. In this case, the excuse became the purpose." 

Will absorbs the information slowly. So - he is here because he had called, unknowing, to someone unknown. The rest - the victory made of his capture, the procession, was for show if he believes Hannibal at his word.

"What would you have done if you had been pulled to someone else in Einar's tribe?" 

"Taken a second captive," Hannibal says. "But I wasn't."

A quiet grows between them, considerate. Thoughtful, rather than tense and uncomfortable. 

For a time, they work to the tune of softly chiming metal. Will has answers, and now, somehow, he wonders how the questions had seemed so pressing. Hannibal had been right - he was here. The past, and the reasons for the past, were unchangeable.

It is the first time he has been answered as if he had a right to know.

Will sets the cleaned bridle aside, reaching for the front girth to help Hannibal finish his half of the work.

"I decided to die," Will admits, looking down at his task. He does not look up, working wax into the leather instead. He does not want to see the reaction.

"I foresaw the dagger," he continues. "I felt peace at last when it struck home."

"And now?" Hannibal's tone is softer than he might have expected, but it carries no hint of pity or apology.

Will finds he cannot answer.

He does not yet have one.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -hirða, to keep, to mind, to care(for)  
> -I think that's it for this chapter, since Hannibal does most of his own explaining.   
> -JUST FYI! I will be out of town for the next few days at a funeral. Updates are on hold, likely until the 6th. If I manage to write enough to update when I get back I will, but I make no promises. After that updates should continue as per normal. Thank you!


	9. Ró

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As much as Fredrik has to say about others, he does not volunteer anything of himself. Will does not go seeking this time - he is leery of the Sight, of how close he'd found it last time.
> 
> Instead, knowing better than to ask Fredrik about Hannibal - either his life or his plans - he ambushes the man with questions about himself. 
> 
> "You aren't Ardik," he accuses. Fredrik blinks.
> 
> Good. Off guard.

The city, Will learns, is called Ró. In the winter, that seems as apt a name as any. The snows make soft of the place, even when Will finds himself at the edge of the plateau and staring down at the spikes arrayed at the base of it. The tips are muted and made soft with white crowns. The wood is dark and wet beneath, sometimes shining with ice. 

Sometimes he stays with Hannibal, following him through the roads and ways of the town. Sometimes he is assigned back to Fredrik's watchful eye, and it is there he learns how it lives and breathes. 

"Ymir and Brunn always argue as if they're about to murder each other," Fredrik confides. "Until they find five minutes alone."

Will does not have to guess what happens then. It seems even with how little free time Fredrik must have, he has time to know the business of the rest of the town.

Avigayil has been hunting alone.

Hannibal has been spending less time looking into the distance.

For every person, a small amount of information. The smith longs to render forth something other than barrel bands and horse shoes. The weavers favor Will - three women, all sisters. He finds himself with hat and gloves, with a heavy wrap that loops around his throat and keeps some of the chill from the bare parts of his skin.

Will indulges them and accepts, even when Fredrik scowls at him for it. The warmth is welcome, and the gloves fit over his manacles to keep the metal from getting achingly cold against his skin.

As much as Fredrik has to say about others, he does not volunteer anything of himself. Will does not go seeking this time - he is leery of the Sight, of how close he'd found it last time.

Instead, knowing better than to ask Fredrik about Hannibal - either his life or his plans - he ambushes the man with questions about himself. 

"You aren't Ardik," he accuses. Fredrik blinks.

Good. Off guard.

"So how did you come here, to get such a duty as minding me?" Will continues. They have drawn fish duty - rather, Fredrik has drawn it and by virtue, Will has been drafted. He does not mind.

"Lucky, I suppose." Fredrik answers, defensive. 

Will eyes him, working innards loose, removing them from the fish he holds in a practiced motion. He is more used to it than Fredrik seems to be.

"You're not Surdik, either."

"Observant."

Will tilts his head, a half-mocking thanks for the sarcastic praise.

"Are there any questions I can ask and expect an answer?" It seems a fair question, an answer to itself, almost.

"None," Fredrik answers flatly, dropping a handful of offal into the bowl for scraps. Will does not know what becomes of the castoffs. It is not interesting enough to test Fredrik's patience by asking.

"Is it so shameful you cannot tell a man who came in chains?" Will asks.

"Will." The voice is Hannibal's and he himself follows it through the doorway into Fredrik's longhouse. 

Will can see the relief in Fredrik's expression, and it further rouses his curiosity. He stands when Hannibal beckons, leaving Fredrik alone to his fish.

"Mind him yourself in the morning," Fredrik calls after.

"A day's time won't kill our Seer's questions," Hannibal answers for Will, his tine faintly amused.

Will wipes his hands clean on a rag as they exit, pulling his gloves from inside his shirt even for this short walk.

"Is it that bad?" Will asks, trying Hannibal for answers.

"He would rather not remember," Hannibal answers, without giving much. "And he does not want to spoil the surprise, I think."

Will looks sharply at Hannibal, uncertain if he likes the sound of that. The man's expression is neutral enough that Will lets the statement go, for now.

His footsteps crunch on new, unbroken snow.

"Did anyone follow us?" he asks, then. "Of Einar's. I never asked."

"None that made it before the snows," Hannibal answers. "Perhaps none at all."

He thinks of Avigayil's father, of the torch falling from startled fingers. He has seen her since, silent and dark eyed when she passes him in the street. 

He wonders if she will ever see him as valuable, wonders how many others share her opinion of his worth. 

"Hannibal," he starts, about to ask after his purpose, when he realizes they don't seem to be returning home - if he can think of it that way.

"Where are we going?"

Hannibal smiles, and the fog of his breath obscures it just a little, putting Will to mind of those Wyrms of legend, breathing flame.

"Down," he suggests.

Will balks - the way down is on the other end of the plateau, and to descend any other way would be madness.

"Neither you nor I can fly," Will retorts, holding his ground stubbornly as a donkey might. 

"Haven't I earned your trust even enough for this?"

Will shakes his head. 

"Come along anyway," Hannibal says, wryly. "You will not need wings, you will only be glad of your boots."

Will supposes he has little choice and he does not want to spoil Hannibal's mood. 

"When the snows started," Hannibal says. "You told me you had chosen the dagger. 

It is not entirely a question. Will answers anyway, setting one foot in front of the other. 

"I tried to," he says. "It did not matter."

"You really didn't forsee my interference?"

Will sighs. "I stopped looking. I saw a fight in the night - Einar's rage, the dagger."

He shakes his head. "I did not want to know more. Sometimes even knowing changes things."

Hannibal listens, quietly, as they walk. At the far end of town, they round a bend and find an emptiness that Will had taken for a yard. Perhaps a garden, in warmer times.

"I don't know if I would have seen you if I looked again," Will confesses. "When I reach for the line of your fate it slides from my grip. But I can see you in my own."

Hannibal looks at him again, considering, and he wonders if he should have offered so much information. He does not know what he will say if Hannibal asks what he has Seen.

He spares Will.

There is a small shed at the center of the center of the clearing, almost a pair of tall doors ant nothing more. 

Hannibal brushes snow from the rings bolted to the doors, and pulls one open. Inside, the floor slopes down sharply, descending into the abyss. Will can see that the walls are rough, natural stone past the brickwork box holding up the doors. It must be natural caves that run down into the body of the plateau.

Hannibal leads the way in and does not look back to see that Will follows. 

"If you knew this was the future instead, would you have chosen the dagger?"

Will does not know what Hannibal expects, posing such a question. It is still captivity, even here in so nice a cage. He is still a tool, though not one made many demands of. He is still in chains - perhaps the best metaphor for this. He has a half freedom. It is not peace.

Neither is it the exclusion of the possibility of such a future.

"I can't say," Will answers truthfully.

Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise in his chest, and Will follows him into the dark.

"Where are we going?" Will asks again.

By feel, Hannibal finds a torch. Will hears it rattle, and he strikes it by flint after three sparks. There is a basket of them in an alcove within, kept warm and dry.

Hannibal doesn't answer the question a second time.

"What if I asked you again?" he returns the question with a question. "Will you give me until spring before you decide again on the matter of peace?"

Will stares at Hannibal, trying to discern the purpose of such a proposal.

"Do I have a choice?" 

The answer is an arch of brows, a shrug. "I don't forsee what opportunities may lay themselves before you."

"You're offering to lay specific ones instead."

Their footsteps are quiet, but their voices echo faintly in the chambers. 

"I would appreciate being allowed the opportunity."

Will shakes his head and realizes that Hannibal is - very gently, in his way, asking if Will intends to kill himself to regain his lost chance at peace.

"What would you do if I said no?" Will asks, envisioning more chains, ever stricter management. Not a moment alone.

Instead there is the rasping sound of unsheathing metal, and Hannibal's short, Imperial sword is in his free hand, a clear menace. 

His other sweeps the torch through the air, the flame roaring in the small space. Will steps back, instinctive. The blade follows after, and Will must _leap_ back, then, impacting the wall behind him.

The pain is sudden and sharp, the fear in him real, raising cold sweat and old instincts to the fore. He lifts his arms, praying to ward the blade with his chain, to foul any further strikes if he could. He cannot hope to fight back, only to save himself until there is a chance to run.

"I would prove there is still a beating heart in you," Hannibal says then, torch lifted high and sword extended. "One that intends to continue."

Will swallows twice, lowering his hands slowly as Hannibal sheaths the blade, his point sinking into Will's thoughts as the weapon might have bitten skin.

Hannibal turns, continuing to lead the way down the passage, and will has the choice to follow or to be left in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Ró, 'Rest'.   
> -Avigayil is the oldest form of Abigail's name and is I believe Hebrew. It would be extremely unusual in their geological part of the world, but since the Norse were prone to wander perhaps her father encountered it as a name somewhere in his younger days and decided to keep it for his daughter.  
> -I'm sure Will is going to eventually weasel Fredrik's past out of him.   
> -I am now back from my trip and updates should hopefully continue as before, though i'm glad I got a lot of writing done because I have a long work week. Please count this as a Wednesday update, and not a tuesday one, which means my next will be Friday!


	10. veiðr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A back way?" Will asks.
> 
> "We take the horses down to graze this way," Hannibal reveals.
> 
> Something has caught his attention. Will looks up across the snow covered fields and sees a dark figure on horseback. They move slowly, picking a cautious way through the snow.
> 
> Something broken and twisted lays flopping at the horse's neck, he thinks. Will has trouble making sense of the angular form until the rider draws closer.

They emerge into the light gradually. It is waning and red by the time they find themselves outside, at the foot of the plateau. Around them, a sea of undisturbed snow dyed red and orange by the setting sun.

"A back way?" Will asks.

"We take the horses down to graze this way," Hannibal reveals.

Something has caught his attention. Will looks up across the snow covered fields and sees a dark figure on horseback. They move slowly, picking a cautious way through the snow.

Something broken and twisted lays flopping at the horse's neck, he thinks. Will has trouble making sense of the angular form until the rider draws closer. 

Hannibal lifts a hand, wordless hailing. The figure answer the gesture. It is small, a slight shape.

The dead animal at the pommel is a dear, he realizes. Skinny. A yearling buck.

"Where did you go?" Hannibal asks - the hunter draws up at a distance somewhere between respectful and wary, a barely human shape muffled in wool and furs.

"Hunting," The voice is female, daring Hannibal to comment. Will realizes it must be Avigayil beneath the furs. 

"How far?" Hannibal's tone does not change, but there is authority in it.

She makes a vague gesture at the mountain range beyond.

"By yourself?"

"I've been by myself before."

"Now it is winter."

She looks at Hannibal, waiting. Will knows the feeling.

"Your horse could mis-step in the snow. Put her foot into an animal's den," he says, still watching her. "Alone, there is now one to rescue you."

"I thought that was what Fatebreakers did?" she says, tossing her head in anger. 

Hannibal does not seem to have an answer for _that_.

"Or do you only save the people that you can _use_?" She turns her wrath on Will, then.

He is not sure how to sooth her anger, if anything he can do would even begin to suggest enough apology. 

"Nothing sent me for your father," Hannibal says, apologetically. "He died following my order, not because I chose for him to."

She snorts, disgusted. 

"I'm sorry," Will offers, and his voice is small but it turns her to him, training her fury in his direction. He wishes he had not spoken, but having already said the words, he does his best to commit.

"I would take it back if I could."

"You didn't even know him," she dismisses, but in the depths of her fur-lined hood, Will can see her eyes softening with grief.

"I know you," Will tells her, though it is only barely true. "And I would give him back, if I could."  
Her expression crumples slowly from anger to fear - a transformation from a young woman into a lost little girl. She kicks her horse into a trot, then, rushing past him and Hannibal. Instinctively, Hannibal raises the torch aloft and she yanks it from his fingers as she goes past, riding into the open mouth of the cave. 

The light vanishes slowly, and Hannibal hesitates, watching her go.

Will is left wondering how they are to get back up. Too, he wonders why they came down.

He pulls the cloak tighter around himself and looks to Hannibal to lead the way.

"She will bar the door," he guesses, and his sigh is a long stream of white steam into the air. "Out of spite."

Will hugs his arms to his chest, looking out at the darkness claiming the landscape.

"We'll walk around," Hannibal instructs. "I'm sorry. It will be a hike."

"Why did we come here, Hannibal?" 

Hannibal glances at him, then sets out through the snow, following the curve of the plateau. 

"You didn't forsee this?" he asks, infuriatingly.

"I don't spend all day looking into the future," Will snaps. "I would go mad."

"But it was your words that stopped the call," Hannibal says, mildly.

"The call?" Will asks, dumbly. Then - there is only one thing Hannibal can mean.

"Even that?"

Hannibal nods.

"But it seems so small," Will observes.

"I thought I was being called to you again," Hannibal observes. "But it was Abigail. And you who broke fate."

Will shakes his head.

"I didn't see it coming, Hannibal."

Another thoughtful noise from Lagbrotna, then. He does not know what more to say.

For a time, they are quiet, and the cold seems worse then, though Will's working hard enough to walk through the crusted snow that he should be worm. Instead the sweat makes him shiver, makes the trek seem longer and more miserable, until at last the front path comes into view and very few sights have ever been quite so welcome to his eyes.

The door to Hannibal's longhouse is more welcome still after they have passed by the confused watchmen. Hannibal had sent one to be sure the cave passage door was closed and barred.

He stirs the fire when they are inside, and strips his boots and gloves to coax warmth back into his extremities. Will follows suit, and hisses when the iron chain touches his skin - it is ice cold.

Hannibal reaches for his hands then, not a demand but a request, and Will offers them, wondering why. 

Hannibal's examination is neither rough nor gentle - only thorough. He checks the skin beneath the cuffs for signs of infection or chill wounds. Will is raw, but whole. It seems to satisfy Hannibal. 

"I think she will forgive you," he says, chafing Will's hands back to warmth before he returns custody of them.

"Avigayil?"

"She needed to grieve but would not allow herself."

Will makes a sound, half protest. He had not done anything but apologize. He glances at Hannibal,a nd finds the man means it.

"Didn't it occur to you to apologize?" Will asks in disbelief.

"I was not sorry," Hannibal says, with an unusually honest tone. It is quiet and ruthless, and Will is surprised by it, t hough he knows he should not be.

"I called for men, her father came by his choice," Hannibal continues, though Will had not asked for any explanation.

"We slew men who were awake and on their feet to get where we were intending. He raised a torch to the tents of sleeping men, of hiding slaves. He took more death than his due, Will. Deliberately and cruelly holding aloft the eye of his danger for all to see. "

Hannibal stretches his hands palms-flat toward the tamer fire in the long, low pit, warming them.

"Is it any wonder someone took aim at it?"

Will supposes such things happen in battle - he has seen crueller. Hannibal proposes this as one might firing an arrow into the mouth of a maddened beast, and perhaps it is apt. It leaves Will uncertain again.

It has been a night for such.

"Why am I here, Hannibal?"

It is late, dark, quiet outside. Only winter can seal the sounds of the world so completely.

Hannibal does not answer, and Will supposes he will have one by spring, as promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> veiðr - hunting  
> I think that's about it for this chapter. They break a little fate together, that's almost cute, right?


	11. fylgja

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will stands before the entrance to the caves, a tall pair of doors that stand nowhere, lead nowhere.
> 
> Within there is howling, screaming, animals and men dying. It is so loud it hurts his ears and yet without, where Will stands it is silent. Deathly still.

Will stands before the entrance to the caves, a tall pair of doors that stand nowhere, lead nowhere.

Within there is howling, screaming, animals and men dying. It is so loud it hurts his ears and yet without, where Will stands it is silent. Deathly still.

The screams raise in pitch and volume until Will lifts his hands over his ears, gritting his teeth as if baring them might save him. It is a desperate sound, unearthly. It seems to cut through him, resonating against his very bones.

Suddenly there is a hammering from within, some great number of hands flat and pounding rapidly on the door. The desperate rhythm of terror. Will backs away a step.

The doors lunge against the heavy oaken bar, swinging just enough on their hinges. The beam bends and splinters and the wailing sounds of agony from within grow louder.

Another impact, and Will flinches away from it, lifting his arms to cross over his chest. The beam buckles and the doors themselves begin to crumble, shards of wood breaking free. At the seam of the divide, a shining red eye appears. A low snort sounds explosive, even against its backdrop of screams. Black points push through the door and move, wrenching.

Then for a moment, silence, breathless.

The black stag explodes through the door trailing fire and lands in a wash of smouldering splinters. It is so near to Will he has to scramble backward out of the radius of it's swinging antlers when the animal raises its head again.

There is the stench of flower nectar and flames, the heat on Will's face, and then the stag is there, standing before the ruined remains of the door. It's hide is dark, black, devouring light like a hole in reality itself. 

Lifting its head in a proud arc, a wild gesture, it screams forth its clashing sword roar, so large it fills the frame of the doorway behind it entirely.

Will wakes shaking, freezing where his skin has raised sweat and yet too hot to bear. He claws his way from beneath the blankets into the cool air. For a moment, he can still smell the fire, the burning pollen before it settles instead into the scent of the tea Hannibal drinks on his late nights, the faint woodsmoke smell of burning coals.

He tries his door and finds it unlocked, letting himself out into the warm low light of the main hall. A cup waits on the table for him, as has become the norm. Hannibal waits too, drinking his own tea meditatively.

"You were dreaming," he observes, and Will wonders if he makes sounds when he sleeps, if he calls out in fear. 

"Just dreams," he says. "I have the same nightmare."

Hannibal tilts his head curiously.

"I dream of a black stag - giant, almost," Will confesses, and somehow even putting it in words soothes him. "With burning antlers."

"Why black?"

"For death, I think. If it - if it even means anything, Hannibal. It never has. It's not like the Sight."

Hannibal lets the subject rest.

Will drinks slowly and cannot find the nerve to ask if he woke Hannibal. He supposes it didn't matter - the lord did not seem upset by it. He had never yet complained of missed sleep, when Will had woken him. It was common enough that it would have been justified.

"Can you ride?" Hannibal asks suddenly, thoughts gone down another path while Will had nursed his worries.

"I rode here," Will offers, knowing it was not truly what Hannibal was asking.

Surprisingly, Hannibal smiles as if he knew he had set himself up for such an answer.

"On your own?"

"To an extent."

Hannibal waits, and Will sighs into his cup tiredly, not knowing why it should matter.

"I can ride a well behaved horse at a walk with a saddle," he elaborates, blandly. "Why?"

"So I know how much I need to teach you," Hannibal answers, and Will has little idea how to respond.

"Now?"

"When it's light. After we've slept," Hannibal specifies.

"In the winter?" Will wonders, uncertain why this must happen now. 

"We'll have no time later," Hannibal answers, with a surety that Will cannot quite understand.

He drains his cup, feeling better - the fear does not hang hard on him anymore and his body is warm from the fire. With a sigh, he accepts that he will begin learning to ride in the morning, if that is what Hannibal wants.

It will, at least, be something to do. 

When he sleeps he is aware vaguely that Hannibal is still up, and Will drowses until he hears the lock click before he sinks deeper into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -fylgja, a guardian spirit that accompanies someone in connection to their fate or fortune  
> -sorry this chapter is short and a little late! I have had a fairly hectic week. I am still working on this, I promise. :)


	12. bjóða

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She is smart, steady, and a confident climber," Hannibal says, amused by the hint of resistance in Will's tone.
> 
> "Is she Kanin's?"
> 
> Hannibal chuckles - the guess is correct.
> 
>  
> 
> "One of his first," he agrees, over Will's groan.

Will does not recognize the animal that Hannibal produces for him. Certainly it is equine, tall and stark black with a brown belly, brown nose, brown legs. However, the ears are strangely long, the nose convex and unrefined. The eyes small and glittering with - Will thinks, mischief.

"What kind of horse is that?" he asks, standing back in disbelief. He had assumed he would be taught on Kanin, though he could not have said why that seemed a certainty.

"The kind that is half donkey," Hannibal explains, and then Will sees the familiar features.

"A mule," he says, somewhere near disbelief.

"She is smart, steady, and a confident climber," Hannibal says, amused by the hint of resistance in Will's tone.

"Is she Kanin's?"

Hannibal chuckles - the guess is correct.

  
"One of his first," he agrees, over Will's groan.

He offers the lead line to Will then, and he supposes he has little right to argue and even less reason. He accepts charge of the animal and offers the back of his wrist to the inquisitive nose that aims itself in his direction. It is velvet soft, easing against his palm in search of treats.

"What's her name?"

"Mule," Hannibal says, simply.

"I take that to mean I can change it."

Hannibal neither endorses no protests the idea. It is permission enough.

"Not that I want to seem less than grateful," Will says, reaching up to pat the warm, well-muscled neck. "But why do I need to know this? I'm hardly raiding material, and your tribe isn't nomadic."

"When it comes time to move, we will be faster if you don't need to share a horse."

It is answer enough for Will. Half of a plan creeps into the back of his mind, a quiet, rebellious thought of daring and escape. He keeps it warm while Hannibal teaches him the specifics of the animal's care. He learns to groom and to feed, how to care for her hooves and what signs of sickness to watch for.

The mule is as even tempered as Hannibal promised, patient with Will as he learns how not to pull her tail while brushing it, how not to adjust the tack.

She and Hannibal both are calm under duress. Will falls twice before the lessons on keeping his seat with correct posture and weight sinks in.

He does not fall again until they begin more challenging lessons. It is a pleasant way to pass the long winter weeks, the chain between his shackles ringing gently as the mule's hooves crunch through the snow. It falls nearly every day now, laying heavy on the town.

The days grow shorter, passing quickly. At night, Will dreams either of the stag or nothing at all, perhaps too exhausted even for his mind's wanderings.

It is a routine he slowly grows accustomed to, and for a time, Will forgets the rest. He is too caught up in learning the command of himself and his animal - something new to him.

The Mule remains 'Mule', as she is the only one. Will has not seen another such, or the donkey that must have mothered her.

She stays comfortably with Kanin, looking almost comical lined up next to him, plain to his striking good looks, with her long ears and mischievous expression.

He tries not to feel it as a parallel between himself and Hannibal.

After a time, Will becomes proficient enough to join Hannibal on rides, more an easy day's occupation than a true lesson.

"Experience will teach you the rest," Hannibal allowed, lifting himself onto Kanin's bare back, a trick Will was certain he would never master.

"Do you intend me to have it?" Will asks, surprised. He is still uncertain to what purpose he is learning at all.

"Will," Hannibal answers in rare earnestness. "Something is coming."

"What?" he asks, aware in the pit of his stomach that he feels it too. That something, somehow, was about to change. The future was calling out to him to look.

"For that answer, I'd need your Sight," Hannibal's eyes are on Will now, his hands pressed against Kanin's withers, the lead rope looped loosely between. He needs neither saddle nor bridle to ride, but leaves the halter on when he can.

Will is surprised by the statement. Hannibal has not mentioned it before.

"Are you asking me to look?"

Dark eyes settle on him and stay, lingering, measuring. Will is not certain what he could be seeking. Perhaps if Will is truly ready, if he is willing to do it.

"Are you offering?" he asks at last, as if uncertain of his own opinion.

Will shakes his head, tempted to see if Hannibal will ever abandon his unusual unwillingness to make demands on Will's gift.

"You could command me," Will tells him - feeling odd to remind him - yet there are still chains at his wrists, and it is at Hannibal's whim.

"I could," Hannibal agrees, the wind stirring his hair gently, changing the picture of his stillness to something kinetic. Even Kanin is still, but with a tension in him that suggests a readiness to be in motion.

"Would that make it easier?" he asks, shifting his seat. "If I commanded you?"

Will is about to snap an answer to the question when he realize h no longer knows if they are talking about only one issue.

Hannibal is still for a moment longer, reading the answer in his silence. He does not command, instead nudging Kanin to a trot that leaves Will and his mule to catch up.

It leaves him to think, quiet, while they trot and race. Never too quickly over the snow, shod horse hooves punching through to ring on the slippery cobbles beneath.

The question forms only slowly in Will's thoughts, a blurred picture becoming clear to the eyes with time.

Why did Hannibal keep him, if not for his talents? Why did he refuse to ever issue a command to his charge, and yet left Will in his chains?"

"What is it you want from me?" he asks at last, frustrated.

"I want your help."

The answer is fair, but strange. He wanted Will's help, but not to have to command it.

Will no longer knows if it _would_ make it easier, if he could simply follow orders. Hannibal does not press him on it, instead letting Will consider as they put up their mounts, as Will takes up his tack to clean - to keep it supple, even in the cold.

"How would you face it-" Will begins over supper, his hands curled around a warm bowl of stew.

"Whatever it is. How would you face it without my aid?"

Hannibal takes a deep breath, considering.

"With men and steel," he admits. "There is an army here, living at peace within the walls or camping without."

It is the first Will has heard of it, and he tries not to look surprised. He thinks of the streets the first day, of how crowded they had been. He feels some shame he hadn't noticed the disparity before.

"In this weather?" he asks, instead of something more obvious.

"They are lower down, in the sheltered valley," Hannibal answers smoothly. "Where they are protected from the worst cold."

"But not an invasion," Will observes.

Hannibal laughs.

"It _is_ an army."

Silence passes between them, blanketing as the snow.

Finally, into it, Will ventures;

"Command me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -bjóða - a command  
> \- sorry the riding is a little gratuitous. I needed some time for them to converse and bond and rather than just having them sit around i figured Hannibal would impart skills on his charge.  
> -more actual plot next chapter :)


	13. drekkja

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weeks pass, time seeming at once to race and stand still in Ró. Night grows longer, and Will's seat surer when he sits ahorse. He has grown fond of the nameless Mule, enough to be certain he cannot rush to name her.
> 
> Will supposes she will give him her name when it is time, and he is careful to listen for it.
> 
> Hannibal commands him - only once - to reach out with his Sight.

Weeks pass, time seeming at once to race and stand still in Ró. Night grows longer, and Will's seat surer when he sits ahorse. He has grown fond of the nameless Mule, enough to be certain he cannot rush to name her.

Will supposes she will give him her name when it is time, and he is careful to listen for it.

Hannibal commands him - only once - to reach out with his Sight.

He keeps the knowledge of the shared intimacy to himself, and it does not raise again. Will is wise - he does not reach into his own future, and he cannot hold Hannibal's. He reaches instead for Fredrik's, feeling somewhat intrusive. He finds the string seems to run parallel to Hannibal's for some time yet. Fredrik is loyal.

There is no real reason to find it surprising, that there is so much loyalty in one so sarcastic and less enamored of Hannibal - of Lagbrotna - as others around him seem to be. Will does not know the story, but there is something that holds them together, and it it is convenient for him to reach without the risk of losing himself in something he does not want to face. He keeps quiet on the subject.

Tracing the line forward, he feels his way to a junction.

With a sensation like falling from a high cliff, the future yanks awareness from Will and drags him in. It is a sensation like water closing over his head after a dive, shocking to the system as his body tries to figure out how to react to the sudden change in surroundings. 

Sights and sounds come to him slowly, after his body registers the cool touch of breeze on skin, the smell of burnt land and rain sharp and smokey in the air, on the back of the tongue. He sees a plain, wide and unfamiliar beneath a blue sky. It is a wreck, a mess of men and bodies, and beneath the smell of fire he registers that the air is thick with blood and death. He finds himself standing alone amidst the remains of the battle, and around him are the corpses of unfamiliar men.

They wear heavy bronze plates on their chests and strange, plumed helmets. His sweeping gaze takes in the same - intermingled with fur clad and crumpled Surdik bodies, the rounded bulk of dead horses, the jut of spears and broken arrows.

From the numbness of shock that holds his mind captive a low, urgent pain grows in Will's awareness, radiating out from his middle. He realizes that he is clutching hard at it already, and odd sensations against his fingertips drags his attention down at last. 

It takes him a moment to make sense of what he sees - wet, blood soaked ropes sit warm in a tangle against his clutching fingers, he is grasping them against his torn abdomen.

The truth comes more slowly, as a wave of sick realization. What he holds against - pink, ropey, soft _intestines_ \- should be within.

He feels the tension of his oncoming sickness roiling through them and it jars him free of the Vision, gasping and gagging.

Will manages to scramble out of the long house, his hands clenched over his mouth to hold on until he can empty the contents of his guts into freshly fallen snow outside.

It looks obscene, steaming pink in the white, melting snow. It leaves him feeling desperate and lost, clutching at his own fluttering middle with one hand as if to be sure he was still whole, and the other hand at his mouth until he is certain nothing else is coming.

The chains on his manacles rattle as he wipes the bitter taste away, recovering his sense of self.

"Is it always like this?" Hannibal asks, from somewhere behind him. 

Will looks up, finding Hannibal watching him from his open door, fascinated as much as concerned. He offers Will a cloth rag without moving closer, giving him the choice of keeping his space if he wants.

Will does not want to. At the moment, perhaps more than he has wanted in his adult life, he wants enough contact to know he is still alive.

Instead, he takes only the offered cloth, wiping his face and satisfying himself with the friction as sensation enough. He wipes his mouth last.

"No," he says finally. "Not every time." 

Hannibal does not immediately ask what Will had seen, instead waiting for him to find composure and readiness - no small feat with such an extreme reaction. Instead, he waits for Will to find composure and readiness.

"Come back inside," Hannibal says, eyes dark with something that might be concern.

Will feels his stomach twist, but it is not such a threat as before. He wants to sit down. He follows Hannibal inside, into light and warmth. Somehow it feels like surfacing, like finally waking from his Vision. 

Hannibal touches gently at his shoulder, guiding him to the table. It is a comforting touch, more than Will would care to admit, and he leans slightly into it, feeling the pressure of contact, the reassurance, before he sits. Hannibal offers mint, then, dried sprigs to chew to help calm Will's stomach. It cleans the sour taste of vomit from his mouth, and comforts him, a familiar remedy he had known since childhood.

"Thank you," Will says, grateful for the kindness, the unusual humanity in Hannibal.

"It was my command that sent you to the depths," Hannibal observes, settling on the floor at Will's feet to look up at him, measuring his wellness.

Will crushes mint leaves between his teeth and breathes the frigid air it produces, working the pulp against the roof of his mouth until the last of his nausea fades.

"What did you see?" Hannibal asks at last, seeing some cue in Will's expression or returning color.

Will sorts carefully through the images, trying to make sense of it. 

"Two dead armies," he says at last. "One Surdik, and the other strange."

Hannibal waits patiently as Will pulls details from his memory, like lifting good grains from broken glass, avoiding going deeper than he has to.

"In a field I do not know," he continues, watching Hannibal's reaction.

There is none, immediately - it is not a surprise, then. Perhaps it would not be, given the tendency for warfare amongst the tribes. 

"There were a great many Surdik - too many," Will realizes it as he thinks, tallying bodies. "More than one tribe. The others were unfamiliar- they wore bronze shells on their bodies, carried heavy bronze shields, and wore shining helmets with manes like wild horses."

At this, Hannibal's expression changes at last, drawing into slow understanding. Will feels comforted somehow that Hannibal does not question him, or think him mad.

Nor does he ask anything further.

"I won't send you again," he says, calmly. "Until I need to see the way."

Will feels relieved. He sags in his chair, grateful to know he will face no more horrors tonight.

"You have seen battle before?" Hannibal asks, then. He gets up from the floor at last, and Will instinctively reaches out to catch hold of his sleeve, the rattle of chains bringing his attention to the motion only after his fingers have closed on the warm, rough fabric. 

Hannibal leaves his question there without commenting on Will's behavior, instead staying his motion to leave Will's side and remaining there, solid and present.

"I have been the _cause_ of them," Will says, bitterly.

He is angry with his own need for comfort. With his treacherous hands.

"What caused your distress?"

Will shakes his head.

"Not the battle - not the death - though it did not help."

Will tries to collect his thoughts enough to find away to change the future just enough. He does not know if he can.

"Do not send Fredrik south," Will tries, uncertain if it was enough or too much.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -drekkja, to drown  
> \- Here is where the graphic violence tag starts to be effective. Sorry! There's likely to be more in this story.   
> -And here we start to see the rest of the plot. My apologies that this seems to move very slowly. The small updates means I can give you more sooner but it makes it seem like the pace is a lot slower. :)


	14. vár

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will passes days between chores and riding, taking more pleasure in the latter as he gains proficiency. Hannibal lets him ride on his own, confident that should he run, he would not make it past the mountains.
> 
> Will is not yet ready to try, nor certain he wants to. He has had many small firsts in Ró, and the trust extended would become more yet, if he proved himself worthy.
> 
> When Will tells himself he will consider it when they go - wherever it is Hannibal thinks they should - he finds that the Mule has dropped her head to lip hungrily at tender green shoots of grass showing through the old, dirty snow.

Hannibal does not command him again.

Will passes days between chores and riding, taking more pleasure in the latter as he gains proficiency. Hannibal lets him ride on his own, confident that should he run, he would not make it past the mountains.

Will is not yet ready to try, nor certain he wants to. He has had many small firsts in Ró, and the trust extended would become more yet, if he proved himself worthy.

When Will tells himself he will consider it when they go - wherever it is Hannibal thinks they should - he finds that the Mule has dropped her head to lip hungrily at tender green shoots of grass showing through the old, dirty snow. 

He is startled to see it, startled at the notion of how long it's been.

_Spring must soon be here._ It wakes curiosity in him that grows and spreads like the small purple flowers that reach through the snow.

Will dreams sometimes of the stag, and always finds his door unlocked and tea waiting hot for him. He doe snot know why he finds it so soothing.

He does not know when Hannibal's constant presence in his life had turned from captivity to a comfort. 

It is another dream that wakes him now sometimes, while the snow melts slowly and the promised spring comes on.

The slow budding of the dwarf trees that grow in the rocky plateau soil wakes the first memory of his earliest Vision. It opens slowly, hesitantly. The night air that comes through Will's small window is cold, but carries the scent of flowers fighting their way open in the chill.

It is the scent that triggers it, the memory of warm hands on his skin, of Hannibal's mouth on him. Of how much, in his vision, he had wanted it. It calls forth pleasure to him as he tries to sleep, and wakes him writhing and sweating when he does at last rest. 

In his dreams - as in the Sight - the pleasure is real. Thick and heavy so that he can almost taste it. He wakes clutching the blankets and with an ache that demands answer.

He is not sure if he makes sound in his sleep for these dreams, does not know if he wakes Hannibal with them. Shame keeps him from trying the door when his hands are sticky with his own ejaculate.

If Hannibal notices fewer interrupted nights or Will's reluctance to join him when he wakes in the company of moonlight, he says nothing.

Will joins him in the morning, tired and guilty, uncertain why his mind returned again and again to something he had no evidence would ever come about - and that he had resolved to avoid if he   
could.

After the fourth repetition, he wakes irritated to find the room warm - not just him, for once - and the long house empty. He steps out into the bright and dripping world of waking spring. It is warm enough that Will does not return for his cloak and gloves.

The snow is a fine slush on the stone streets, and he can see green fronds of grass creeping through the deeper, brown patches of gardens. Will checks the stable first and finds his Mule blinking into the sunlight he admits into the darkness, but no sign of Kanin.

He swings the door wide and calls the Mule, hooking a hand through her halter to lead her out, having an idea where to go. 

She pricks her long ears up as they approach the back of the plateau. Will does not need to even hold the lead rope when she realizes they are headed down to the pasture at the base of the town.

He takes a torch from the basket and lights it to lead the way down, finding the passage open as if in invitation. The darkness feels less complete somehow on this journey, with the dull sounds of his Mule's hooves thudding in measured cadence behind him.

The strange smell of wet, warming earth greets him just before the first grey signs of sunlight. Blinking, he steps into the light, emerging at the base of the plateau onto the grassy headlands at the rear. Without the snow, the ground is grassy and rocky, and Will can see a small herd of horses moving together, heads down and limbs straight, slow to move.

He unties the lead from her lifted head, smiling to see the intense angle of her long ears as he frees her to join them for her breakfast.

Down on the plains, the sun seems warmer on his skin. Will has a brief moment of bliss, discovering how much he had missed the warmth of Spring. 

A dark shape moving amongst he herd at a faster pace catches Will's attention, and he recognizes Kanin, the stallion's head lifted at a frisky angle, lip jutting to reveal teeth.

Will sighs, unable to help smiling.

"An early start this year," Hannibal's voice observes, as Will watches the stallion single out a mare. 

Turning, he finds Hannibal sitting outside the ring of sharpened stakes, high on a rock where he can oversee the grazing herd.

Will finds his feet carrying him through the small break in the defensive circle. Will wonders if they guard it in the warmer months. He wonders, thinking o his dream, if it has ever been a threat. If anyone has challenged Ró at her gates.

"Do you take bets on how much your herd will increase each year?" Will asks, reaching up to take the hand Hannibal offers down.

He climbs the rock with a clattering of chain, finding a space to sit next to Hannibal on the warm stone surface.

"Brunn took the pot last year," Hannibal agrees, with a dark amusement shining in the depths of his eyes.

"Does this mark the start of spring?"

Hannibal makes an acquiescing noise, his eyes on the herd. Will follows it, unsure if he should yet ask what it was that he was waiting for. 

Instead he allows his mind to relax, tries for once, to find some peace. He breathes the warm air and watches the horses graze - watches Kanin charm his intended target, nonplussed. The stallion is incorrigible and Will supposes in several more years the herd will be more uniformly dark in color , if they all throw foals as true to Kanin's bay as his own mule. 

"Things will change quickly now," Hannibal observes, his eyes distant. Will knows the look by now, of Hannibal listening to his own inner gift. Or perhaps, if Will believes that far, it is the Gods reaching out to him.

"Do you know what's coming?" Will asks, thinking of the one vision Hannibal had commanded of him. It had been only enough to scare him, the rest of it beyond his knowledge.

"I have some better idea, Will," Hannibal says.

There is a long pause. They both watch the distance and feel the weight of the future settle harder on them. Will realizes he has - even with all these years passed hand to hand - never met anyone as cognizant of the hands of Fate and the approach of the future as he. It is a strange sense of companionship, and Will finds it startling to realize how much Hannibal shares with him.

Perhaps that was part of Hannibal's reluctance to ask for Will's sight. He knew the burden the future could be, and could not stand to rush the both of them into it. 

The trouble was, they could only forestall it for so long. Will realizes that the winter, a long slow hibernation, had incubated them for long enough to be ready for what was coming. Frozen, as if to hold back time itself.

"Imperium," Hannibal says, without looking at his eyes still on the horses. "They march to crush us flat."   
-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vár - spring (i'm hoping the right one)  
> -Imperium, remember, is the rough equivalent with Rome. Probably 1000% done with all this viking raid bullshit. I blame the Surdik.


	15. duga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is stunned into disbelief by the total confidence in Hannibal's tone. Not only that he would succeed to unite even half of the tribes, where years of warfare had failed, but that he would have Will's assistance.
> 
> Of course he could demand it, as Will had forced him to in the past, but somehow he knows that isn't what Hannibal intends.
> 
> "Why should i help you?" Will asks, exasperated and uncertain. "Why do you even believe I can?"

"What will you do?" Will asks, uncertain of the whole implication behind Hannibal's statement. It sinks into his knowledge slowly, combining itself with his memory of the Vision. The sea of dead bodies. If that was a victory for Imperium, Will cannot fully comprehend the size of the force that must be coming.

"I will unite the Ardik," he says. "And the Surdik, if it is not already too late..."

Hannibal lets himself down off the rock and whistles loudly, startling Will.

Kanin's head raises then, and the tired stallion leaves the mare he had finished reluctantly, with a brief nuzzle, trotting back to Hannibal and accepting a treat of sweet oats from Hannibal's pocket pouch. He lets Hannibal climb up onto his back with neither saddle nor bridle. 

It puts him on level with Will who makes no move to get down from the rock. He senses that Hannibal wants him to join Hannibal in riding, or perhaps his strange energy means that his mounting up is a method of quick escape when he desires it.

"How?" Will asks, when Hannibal's attention returns to him, his seat confident.

"You'll help me," Hannibal asserts, "Showing me the way to gather them together under my rule - or direction."

Will is stunned into disbelief by the total confidence in Hannibal's tone. Not only that he would succeed to unite even half of the tribes, where years of warfare had failed, but that he would have Will's assistance.

Of course he could demand it, as Will had forced him to in the past, but somehow he knows that isn't what Hannibal intends.

"Why should i help you?" Will asks, exasperated and uncertain. "Why do you even believe I can?"

Hannibal smiles. Kanin is restive beneath him, picking his feet up and tossing his head with the urge to go. Will can see the minor corrections Hannibal makes with his seat and heels, to keep the horse from moving too far.

"Because I will trade for it," he says eyes dark beneath the wild fringe of his hair. "Make me the king of the tribes, and I will make you a free man."

Hannibal turns then, encouraging one anxious movement that Kanin makes into a gallop, and leaves Will to consider the offer. Kanin obliges Hannibal with a spirited leap toward the cave entrance.

It leaves Will alone to consider the offer, in the early spring air while the horses graze the plains. Hannibal had not needed to escape - it had left Will speechless enough for a slower retreat to have been just as effective.

He has had some few offers - and threats in innumerable measure. This is the first time anyone has offered him ownership of himself. He is not sure that he believes it.

Will sighs out a deep breath slowly, measuring it to a count of ten, and becomes aware of another presence. He turns to see if Hannibal has returned to watch him.

He discovers instead that Fredrik is standing there at the entrance of the caves, stern and silent. Will is not certain if he has been sent out to guard Will or sought out his company for once.

He does not know if he welcomes the company to his scattered thoughts. He does not know how he is supposed to gather them.

He would have never supposed he would not leap for his freedom. Even for such a price as his assistance in making a king. The thoughts of the tribes ever accepting such a thing is a strange one.

Will lifts his voice so Fredrik will hear, sensing the other has come closer.

"Did he offer you freedom in the same way?"

"Not _exactly_ the same way," the tone is quiet. Wry. Implying some meaning that Will does not quite want to dig out. 

"And if I say no?" Will wonders - he cannot possibly, he sees how much has been arranged to get him here. To put him slowly at ease enough to know that no matter his past, Hannibal was a different sort of Lord. To ready him for freedom even as a concept.

"Will you?"

"No," Will admits, and lets out a sigh. "Though I'm not ready to say yes either."

Fredrik chuckles, or begins to, as much a sound of disbelief as amusement.

Will wonders what it is that strikes him as funny - the notion that Will was resisting to prove that he still _could_ or some old parallel to his own situation.

"Who are you really denying?" Fredrik wonders aloud, passing by the rock and moving toward the herd of horses for his gray. "And _why_ are you really denying them?"

The question is rhetorical, to a point. Perhaps one Fredrik had asked himself, however long ago.

It is what he is carrying that stops Will's train of thought.

Fredrik is burdened with a heavy set of packs, with his saddle. He is catching his horse to go.

Dread fills Will suddenly, and he slides down off the rock quickly.

"Where are you going?" he asks - almost a demand in his desperation to know.

Fredrik's answer makes his heart sink further.

"South."

He whistles then, and a gray head lifts from the herd. The horse's ears turn in a lazy half circle toward Fredrik, then he lowers his head again to graze. Fredrik makes an agitated sound and whistles again. 

"Why south?" Will asks, even though he knows, at least enough of it to be afraid.

Fredrik glances at him once his gray has finally left the herd to join them.

"Can you really see the future?" he asks, then. "Or do you let others believe you can so that there is a reason to leave you alive?"

Will ignores the acerbic comment, knowing the defensiveness is likely sprung from fear.

"Imperium is coming, or so those of you who can reach forward into the future say," Fredrik explains, when he can see that Will is still waiting. "I am going to see how far it has come - and to warn the Surdik, if they'll listen."

His horse sees the saddle at Fredrik's feet and turns abruptly back toward the herd with a dismissive swish of his tail.

"The threat of Imperium may yet entice them to set aside their differences," Fredrik finishes with an agitated noise. 

He heads toward the herd, his movement stiff with annoyance at the stubborn animal.

Will follows, concern pulling in him like a cord tied to something vital, even as he helps Fredrik cut the horse from the rest, catching a hand into the braided rope bridle as the horse makes to bolt by him for escape.

"Fredrik," Will warns, careful as he can. There is a very thin line of change, a silver strand of deviance that shifted beneath whoever tried to balance upon it. He does not want to change things so much that the result is the same.

"I believe you will find they are already there," he says, finding he has Fredrik's full attention. For all his earlier dismissal, he still believes in Will's ability enough for this much.

With a heavy heart, Will turns over the horse's bridle to the animal's master.

"Be careful," he stresses, looking into gray eyes that betray faint nervousness beneath his scepticism. Will does not know how it has come to matter so much that he feels relief when Fredrik nods his understanding.

He has never cared for the fate of his captors before, kind or cruel as they have been.

He watches Fredrik fix the saddle to his mount, sling the packs over the animal's withers, and his heart and throat seem to twist together in his chest, forming a hard knot of confusion in the hollow of his ribs.


	16. ráð

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For every step he gives it flows higher, pouring from the doors in pulses and waves now, with a sound like a trickling stream that seems to fill his awareness. 
> 
> Will impacts a surface, soft at his back but unyielding. The red tide washes over his feet, warm as life at his ankles. 
> 
> A hot gust of air explodes at his cheek, rushing against his skin, smelling of burning wood and the sweet stench of death. It drifts like smoke before his eyes as he jerks away.
> 
> It is the black stag, so close he can feel the heat from the flames burning in the cage of its antlers.

The door gapes open like a wound, standing wide and abandoned at the edge of town. Will's eyes are drawn to the void, empty and quiet. It is not howling, but it breathes hot breath into the night, an ebbing blackness pouring sticky from its foot, as if the shadow itself had grown heavy and become an ocean to pour out.

Will backs away as it flows toward him, the shadowy tide revealing itself as thick, red blood where the moonlight touches it.

For every step he gives it flows higher, pouring from the doors in pulses and waves now, with a sound like a trickling stream that seems to fill his awareness. 

Will impacts a surface, soft at his back but unyielding. The red tide washes over his feet, warm as life at his ankles. 

A hot gust of air explodes at his cheek, rushing against his skin, smelling of burning wood and the sweet stench of death. It drifts like smoke before his eyes as he jerks away.

It is the black stag, so close he can feel the heat from the flames burning in the cage of its antlers.

Glassy black eyes reflect Will's face for a moment before it snorts again, a throaty sound like a drawing dagger.

Will freezes still, feeling the blood flowing over his ankles, up to his calves. The stag lifts its head, mouth open to breathe hot against Will's face. He can see the flowers blackening and breaking apart in the cradle of its antlers, embers drifting down to touch fires alive where they land.

Will backs away now again, under the watching black eyes, aware of the gaping void of the door at his back. The stag lifts its head to the full height of its neck, as if to rear up into the sky.

Above it, a burning star shows impossibly huge through the inky black frame of its antlers, orange bright against the dark sky. Will stares, dazzled, as it grows larger in his field of vision, descending burning onto the buildings of Ró.

Will pulls in a breath and the air is warm in his lungs, hot with the radiant temperature of the stag, bracing for impact. His fear rises up to choke him - the falling star descending right where Hannibal lives. _Home._

Will wakes, gasping, warding his hands over his head in a clattering of chain links. The air tastes wet and cool, rain pouring down against the roof. 

He finds himself clawing his way from beneath the blankets, lifting himself to his feet on the cot. Will reaches up and grabs for the ledge of his small window, dragging himself up until he can see the dark sky outside. Starless. Purple black night dropping rain in a ceaseless spring drizzle. 

Relief floods through Will in a near tangible wave, dragging his held breath from him in a sigh. There is no burning star falling on Ró, nothing coming to threaten the place his mind had accepted as 'home' before he was even conscious of the change.

He catches his breath, climbs down from his bed and finds that the door has been left unlocked for him. The main hall is dim, unlit save for the low embers in the fire pit, but Will can see that the tea pot hangs over it on a hook. He finds Hannibal sitting at the table, two mugs of tea attendant in the dark. 

The front door is open to the sound of rain, to the flashes of occasional lightning and the fresh soil taste of the earth waking beneath the soft touch of water. Flashes of lightning occasionally brighten the space, when the gods see fit to throw them down.

"How do you know when I'll wake up?" Will asks, voice low in the dark. He hesitates, watching Hannibal's profile in the faint light, the recognition of Will's voice sparking up on his features, the formulation of an answer in slow consideration.

Hannibal looks calm, tired, more human somehow half woken. His hair is slowly pulling free of the braid that keeps it gathered back from his face.

"I make the tea every time I wake," Hannibal tells him, quiet. They speak as if afraid to disturb something else waiting in the darkness. Perhaps the darkness itself. 

Will waits for the rest of the answer - either Hannibal wakes every night and often consumes two cups of tea, or something wakes him on the same nights that Will gets up.

"There is something about your dreams," Hannibal allows, watching Will accept his cup and settle. 

The other chair is familiar, the white and yellow petals uncurling in his cup of mellow, soothing tea. Will has had habits in the past - ways to survive what he has been through. But, for all the ownership, for all the hands he has passed through, he has never had companionship.

"I am sorry to keep waking you," Will says, realizing at last that his gift must sing out to Hannibal's, calling him to know, to understand what is coming so that he can change it for something favorable. It was the promise of being able to do more than guess at what he was being guided to do.

Hannibal shakes his head, glancing at Will from the corner of his eye.

"They wake both of us," he says. "So we need not endure them alone. What have you dreamed?"

Will's mind leaps guiltily to the dreams that have kept him up more often of late. To fevered pleasure taken by his own hand while the memories faded back slowly like a receding wave.

He can nearly feel the color creeping to his cheeks, the heat spreading down along either side of his spine. He is grateful for the low light, Hannibal does not seem to notice.

That he means the gradually intensifying dreams only occurs slowly to Will. Portents - for they are not the future directly - that Hannibal could use to define his course. Will exhales slowly.

"The black stag bringing down a burning star," Will says then, re-ordering his thoughts quickly. "Blood pouring through the streets. Hannibal, the star was going to land right here."

Hannibal is listening, intent, eyes revealing nothing but his attention on Will. Will cannot fathom his calm, but he envies it.

"Is that all?" Hannibal asks, Will sensing just a hint of curiosity that is almost playful.

He wonders if his other dreams call out to Hannibal also, leaving him awake and wondering why Will did not join him. Or worse, perhaps the hand of fate clenching in such a way that it left Hannibal just as affected as Will.

"It's all that's important," Will manages, dropping his gaze away from Hannibal's intent expression. "They are coming, and if we don't act they will make it all the way to our doorstep."

It would mean nearly all of the tribes had been conquered, killed, or subjugated. How small their quarrels over land and lineage would seem, then.

"Does that concern you?" Hannibal asks, with genuine curiosity.

Will supposes when he admits that it does, it means he has come a very long way from where he had been in Einar's keeping. Then, he had felt impassive to the destruction of the tribe. To his own death.

"Yes," he says, measuring out a breath in a count of five. "I have no love for the tribes but I would not see them totally destroyed."

"It's no less than what they did to your people," Hannibal observes.   
Will shakes his head. No one deserves it, as he knew intimately.

"Willing slavery on the tribes would not undo what became of the Seers," Will allows.

Hannibal smiles then, with a gentle pride, as if Will were novel and precious, a rarity. The answering pride that Will feels at such a notion confuses him. He had not asked for any of this - not the war that had crushed his peaceful people, no the slavery that had passed him as a trophy from one hand to the next until he had been willing to die. 

Not the unseen interference that had pulled him from those depths to here, to the slow healing of his soul that he had never anticipated. Not while he lived among the tribes, anyway.

"Will you help me, then?" Hannibal asks, slow and careful like winding open the steel teeth of a trap to set beneath the snow. It is not a command. "Not because I demand it, but in trade?"

Will supposes that all of his debate had amounted to the fluttering of butterfly wings in the beak of a shrike. A petty impulse of uncertain resistance when the truth was already in the unchangeable past. 

"You said they do not believe in the Sight in Imperium," Will says, resigned. "And they did not know what to do with Lagbrotna besides try to destroy him."

He shakes his head. "I do not accept _kykr feigr_ , not even if it is all I see whenever I close my eyes." 

Will makes an offer of all that he has that he can call his, extending his chained wrists so that the expanse of links between the manacles lays exposed and bare on the table. He can only See fate, can only try to fight it in small ways. Lagbrotna can strike it like a hammer with the will of the gods until it rings and resonates in the shape of his very shadow.

There is no poetry in how Will is ultimately freed. Hannibal rises and finds a lever, lifting his cup to his mouth to wet his tongue with tea while he heats two links carefully, mindful of Will's skin before he pries them open. The manacles peel back stiffly on their hinges to reveal pale, scarred, but whole skin beneath.

When they clasp wrists after Will is freed, he can feel Hannibal's old scars against his fingertips and knows the sensation exists in duality against Hannibal's own. It is like a shock to the base of his spine, a sudden energy and conviction.

"Are we truly equals now?" he asks, brave with that touch on his skin. 

In answer, Hannibal pulls them together and kisses Will in the sudden, welcoming silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -ráð, 'plan, intention'  
> -this chapter beta'ed in a rush by the amazing Quedarius, (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), the patron saint of my failure to appropriately deploy my space bar.  
> -ah yes finally some real action! If you can call a kiss real action.


	17. kynkvísl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal sits quietly on the other side of the fire, eyes up on the sky as the firelight twists against his stark features, cutting shadows into his well- trimmed beard beneath his prominent cheek bones.
> 
> He is not lost to the future, Will thinks, or at least no more than any other man might be considering the things he knew to be coming.
> 
> Will moves closer, sitting next to Hannibal to speak in an undertone. For all that has passed between them, Will feels no hesitation to approach Hannibal. He must at least trust him, to hold up his end of the bargain and earn the freedom Will has been given an advance on.

The night is surprisingly warm as they make camp, a small company of four. Will rubs his bared wrists idly, feeling the rough skin where the manacles once sat.

Ymir and Brunn argue amiably over dinner, a stew made from game that Ymir had brought down with a well fired arrow. It is simple, unheated talk - debate over spices and preparation, as much to give them the excuse to speak to each other without stopping as anything else. Will cannot help but smile at it, despite the severity of their mission.

Hannibal sits quietly on the other side of the fire, eyes up on the sky as the firelight twists against his stark features, cutting shadows into his well- trimmed beard beneath his prominent cheek bones.

He is not lost to the future, Will thinks, or at least no more than any other man might be considering the things he knew to be coming.

Will moves closer, sitting next to Hannibal to speak in an undertone. For all that has passed between them, Will feels no hesitation to approach Hannibal. He must at least trust him, to hold up his end of the bargain and earn the freedom Will has been given an advance on.

"Which tribe are we wooing first?" he asks, keeping his tone quiet enough that it will not interrupt the lover's spat going on across the cook fire.

Hannibal lowers his gaze from the stars only slowly, taking his time in answering. 

"To gather the other tribes we will need at least some claim of blood right," he explains. "An established lineage."

Will is surprised for a few moments, but supposes he should not be. Hannibal had been born a slave in Imperium, it was unlikely his father was of any importance. 

"If you have your own-" Will suggests, earning himself a wry look.

"I do not," he says simply. 

He could build a legacy, he clearly had. He could not make his _own_ claim on it, according to accepted tradition within the tribes. He could put forward his progeny, or fight to secure for them what he had earned and claimed, but he himself would not be recognized. At least not before he had defeated Imperium on their own doorstep. 

"So," Hannibal continues, when it becomes clear Will has no more interruptions ready. "We will ask Britta's aid."

Will cannot hide his surprise at the choice. He has heard of her, of course, the fierce warrior queen both respected and scorned by the other tribes.

"She has no legitimacy either," Will protests, uncertain how allying themselves with such notable outcasts would help their position.

"No," Hannibal allows, "But as warrior, the tribe is unparalleled, and she has allied herself with Margret." 

Will is not familiar with the name. He knows enough of Britta's tribe to venture a guess - a woman, a warrior, an outcast for some reason. 

Britta had united them under her sheltering wings for nearly ten years that way, with no concern for their heritage or origins - raising soft whispers among the women in Einar's tribe. Will had heard them speak almost reverently of the haven their men spoke of with scorn.

"She has claim to the Gandr heritage," Hannibal continues. "Though few have chosen to recognize it since she murdered her brother to gain it."

"She-" Will begins to ask why, and then supposes it does not matter. "Will anyone aid us under her flag?"

"She is likely the only one who will agree to lend us her claim," Hannibal's tone is amused. "We will work with what we can gather."

Will sighs, allowing that Hannibal knows better how to play the game than he does.

"So what is my role?" He asks, earnest. "For someone who did not know exactly what was coming, you seem to have your course plotted."

Hannibal takes the subtle barb in stride, enduring Will's suspicion with his usual good grace. He holds his answer until he is ready to give it, but allows a smile at Will's accusation. Perhaps, even without the threat of Imperium, Hannibal would have endeavored to unite the tribes. 

Ymir and Brunn both watch them intently, quiet, as if waiting on the outcome of a wager, and Will wonders what they could possibly be anticipating. He sits back from Hannibal.

"You are burning supper," Hannibal tells them, blandly, and the rhythm of cooking and arguing resumes.

"I'll need you," Hannibal continues while they are distracted, and the low tone and careful privacy amongst his men reminds Will of that second day they had ridden together, Hannibal speaking intimately against his ear.

"To See what they want," Hannibal reveals. "So I can offer them something truly tempting."

Will blinks. He has never - not in all his years as a captive tool - been asked to use his gift so subtly. He does not know if he has as much finesse as it would require. 

"I'm not sure I can," Will says, the prospect unfolding daunting, like a lanky predator getting to its feet in his path.

"You can," Hannibal assures him in gentle confidence, rising to retrieve his supper from the much contested pot. 

The assurance confuses Will, though it is not out of line with Hannibal's usual confidence. Will did not find himself as worthy a target as Hannibal for certainty.

He watches Hannibal move through the firelight, the shadows seeming more willing to take him than the orange dancing light to touch him. Will is transfixed afresh.

At home, in Ró, Hannibal was a different creature. Here, on the move, with his hair braided tight and his sword slung at his back so that he might ride easier, the transformation is whole. As the moon existed, unfolding her light slowly over the nights before vanishing, so was Hannibal to Lagbrotna.

Will finds his thoughts straying as he eats, left alone to them. The stew is over seasoned, but edible. Ymir and Brunn retreat to their blankets to sleep under the open sky - or perhaps only to have some privacy.

His mind circles, warning, back a week in time to the kiss Hannibal had given him. It had sparked heat and surprise in Will, waking an echo in him - a desire he had been so intent to never feel. It comes up sharp and overwhelming. Will had stopped himself from leaning into it, had pushed Hannibal back at last, but not before the kiss had gone deep and real, beyond the questioning press of lips it had started as.

Hannibal had accepted Will's stammered protests, stepped back at the pressure Will had pushed into his chest without hesitation. 

He had not believed Will's old standby protection, however, when it had tumbled out of him in fits and starts as the only thing he could think of to say.

In the past, Will had protected himself from such unwanted advances by claiming his Sight required purity of body.

None had been willing to risk destroying his gift for the brief pleasures of the flesh. One had gone so far, before Einar had struck him down to claim Will as his own, as to lock him away in isolation to prevent Will from tempting his men. 

He had considered holding his own body hostage, briefly, before discarding the idea - there was no truth to his claim. Better not to encourage his captors to test it.

Hannibal simply hadn't believed him. He had, instead, gently touched Will's cheek, run his fingers softly through Will's unruly curls and stepped back to give him the space he thought he wanted. 

Since, he had not pressed Will, had not mentioned it or sought to repeat the gesture. Will had done his best to forget how much he _had_ wanted it, in the moments after Hannibal had stepped away, returning to his room and leaving Will alone in the hall.

He had looked into the open mouth of Hannibal's doorway and not found the courage to step into that welcoming shadow.

Will curls into his own blankets, watching the horses sleep with their chins on each other's backs. His eyes pick out the Mule's long ears, even in shadow.

His thoughts and uncertainties move sluggishly against his skin as sleep nears, the night warm and quiet except for the sweet, distant sounds of spring insects.

Before he can sleep Will remembers Hannibal's proposition from earlier in the night and wonders if co-operation is the only thing Hannibal seeks to tempt Will into with his kindness and offers of freedom. 

What did he truly want? 

If Will had followed him into his bedroom a week ago, would the open darkness have sprung closed on him like the steel jaws of an animal trap, or would he have found only softness to welcome him, a true doorway into something he had not yet known? Were the two, when he thought about it, so very different?

Will supposes he will not know until he either relents and gives in to Hannibal, or the other finally asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -kynkvísl, meaning linneage.  
> -Britta is Bedelia. I had to go back really far into the origin of the name into the Danish localized version. As it is a diminutive of Bridget, origin Brigitta (scandanavian), the diminutive of which is Britta, I felt this was roughly equivalent and better suited to the setting/timeframe.  
> -Margret is of course, Margot. This is also an older, localized version of the name. Gandr is a little different, rather than Verger - he origin of Verger is in the church office of Verger, which is named after the staff they carry, the Virge. The origin of this is the latin Virga, for simply 'stick or rod'. I.E. Staff. I went with the Norse equivalent of Staff in this case, or Gandr. (Actually the origin of Gandalf, meaning 'staff elf', as a sort of funny aside.) So the Gandr line would be equivalent to the Vergers, I.E. Originally Margot and Mason. Mason is clearly now deceased.  
> -This chapter again beta'd by Quedarius, (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), the extremely patient overseer of my horrific present tense conundrums.


	18. stela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will wakes to Brunn's startled yelp, surging awake with the sudden knowledge of intimate danger. The blank canvas of his sleep surrenders quickly, and Will becomes aware of a near presence. 
> 
> Hot, sweet smelling breath ruffles his hair and Will's vision fill with the dark, looming muzzle of a horse. Will jerks up, the top of his head impacting the underside of the horse's jaw.

Will wakes to Brunn's startled yelp, surging awake with the sudden knowledge of intimate danger. The blank canvas of his sleep surrenders quickly, and Will becomes aware of a near presence. 

Hot, sweet smelling breath ruffles his hair and Will's vision fill with the dark, looming muzzle of a horse. Will jerks up, the top of his head impacting the underside of the horse's jaw.

The animal makes a startled squeal and jerks away while Will sees stars. He lifts a hand automatically to his suddenly aching skull.

It doesn't go far, pulled back from bolting by a mounted rider who sits confident on her elegantly appointed steed. 

Will looks up past the animal to take in more of the rider, finding her eyes trained on him intently, lips pursed as she studies him, silent and commanding on her nervously shifting steed. Fine features, cold eyes and a mastery that seemed to radiate from her.

Her stillness atop the moving horse reminds him of Hannibal, though attitude is the only similarity. She has long, pale hair and changing eyes, and keeps her long sword slung along the side of her horse where it would not hamper her.

"You're the Seer," she guesses, before turning her gaze to seek out Hannibal, finding him on his feet nearby, watching the exchange with alert patience.

"My name is Will," he corrects with a sudden instinct that he knows who this must be.

Her attention turns slowly back from Hannibal, and she smiles appreciatively at his audacity. Her dun mare slowly grows quiet, as the horse guesses Will no longer intends to assault her with his skull.

"Will, then," her voice is smokey, worn and yet still curlingly seductive. She is beautiful with her crow's feet and frown lines - not etched deep, suggesting a reserve for her laughter and anger both. "But you are the Seer, taken from Einar at the cost of his life."

Will nods.

"Strange company to keep, Lagbrotna," she turns her attention again, and Hannibal straightens up under her gaze, as if trying to pass inspection - or at least not to disappoint his image.

"Stranger still the place you choose to keep it," she continues. "You are trespassing."

Will drags himself to his feet then, and finds that aside from Britta, they seem to be alone - no band of warriors accompanied her, no escort save her own sword arm.

"Parlaying," Hannibal offers instead.

"In person?" the tone is challenging, slightly more husky with curious interest.

"I would not insult you by sending a messenger to propose an alliance," he answers smoothly, but does not bow or give way to her authority. Not while she remains mounted and at the advantage.

"You don't flatter me by bringing yourself," she quips, taking verbal coup.

"I will still offer." 

She sweeps her gaze over the small party then; Brunn wordless and still half awake, Hannibal carefully on his feet though she had woken him too, and Will, standing only inches from the bedroll she'd been nearly on top of.

"Your guard patrols very wide," she observes, glancing at Brunn when she says it, taking in his anxious expression. "If he is only watching for my scouts."

"He isn't," Hannibal answers, playing his cards close to his chest.

Britta makes a thoughtful hum of agreement, and tips her chin up, turning her horse to step lightly from the camp. The dun picks up her feet with a certain careful grace, a fine animal.

"I will hear you," she decides. "Come further south. Camp has moved since last we trusted you."

There is a story in her choice of words, in the sharpness of her tone, Will thinks. He has no chance to ask before she has spurred the horse again, leaving in as leisurely a fashion as she might have come, for all he knows.

"Go and fetch Ymir," Hannibal orders, but his tone has an undercurrent of pleasure in it, counting even this cautious acceptance as victory. 

Will cannot wholly clear his mind of Britta's cool, calculating eyes and supposes he must feel grateful to be alive and unharmed when taken at so total a disadvantage by such a warrior. 

Brunn scrambles out of his piled furs half clad to go and get Ymir, expressing none of Hannibal's grace in getting onto his mount with no saddle or bridle.

Will helps Hannibal pack the rest, working in the logical spaces where Hannibal isn't before he gets his mule saddled and ready. He pulls the heavy, dark cloak from his pack to ward the cool morning air from his skin, and feels somewhat braver for the wolf-eared visage he knows it must present.

"That went well," Hannibal observes, while Brunn and Ymir make similarly ready in quick, nervous gestures that suggest mutual embarrassment over Ymir's failure as a sentry. 

"She did not kill us," Will agrees. "Nor castrate us for trespassing."

Hannibal laughs, looking at Will in startled amusement.

"Where did you hear that? She has better use for men than maiming," he says, and it seems little comfort.

Hannibal corrects their course to follow more closely the way Britta had gone, and Will watches the single set of hoofprints in the soft, damp earth multiply behind them, measuring his breaths.

Wordless, Hannibal reaches out to take Will's reins, and his mule falls in close without complaint, leading obediently at Kanin's side while Will reaches into his Sight and tries to sort one strand from the knot of them ahead, a tangle of interwoven Fates and souls.

He is not quite sure what he is looking for, what signal to feel for. The intersection is a gnarled jumble, reaching out to try and submerge him in it, a whole event in a dozen points of view.

He has no choice but to plunge in and his vision wakes first as the image of tamed fire, gathered bodies. He sees Hannibal from a distance, from stranger's eyes and the smaller, enigmatic figure in a dark cloak at the man's side and _covets_. With a startle that's nearly enough to shove him free of the vision, Will realizes he is looking at himself, standing obedient and chainless at Hannibal's side.

They do not want him, nor help from any man. They want a claim that stands on their own virtues. 

Will pulls back only long enough to gather self-awareness before reaching for another strand.

This time, there is no resentment, only scorn. Only a weariness at the way men ran their world, ever at war to dominate all that they could. A knowledge that she - oh yes - had endured as much or more for her birthright.

Will finds the heir to the Gandr line proud, with a quiet, patient anger. She would use Hannibal, if she could, and if he proved an unworthy tool or an unworthy man, she would leave him broken in the dust as she had her brother. She would tread over his corpse to something greater still.

Will draws back into himself with a shudder, unused to feeling so much that is not himself.

Hannibal returns the reins of Will's mule, without asking after his vision. Will realizes they have found Britta's camp and are nearly upon it, and it is larger than he expected.

The tents are octagonal, spacious, with colored tapestries hung between the support struts for insulation and protection from evil. Each tent seems to have a different patron animal - Will sees wolves, rabbits, stags, horses, serpents. It seems the women have adopted their own new protectors in place of the guardian spirits their ancestors would have conferred, had they remained in their own tribes.

Will is impressed despite himself, knowing they would have run with nothing from whatever drove them out of safety and comfort. They have built all this on their own with only their strong hands and knowledge. 

Several of the warriors wait outside their tents, all women. One, wielding a massive two handed axe with a certain affection, the kind that leaves Will uneasy, approaches Hannibal and bars his path with the weapon, the haft nearly as long as she is tall. 

She has a mass of frantically curly and brilliantly red hair, sharp, pretty features even with the deep scar over her lip on the left side, and she plants herself in front of Kanin fearlessly.

"You have some nerve coming back, thief," she says, with what Will hopes is good humor. It does not entirely sound like it.

Hannibal halts, mindful of the weapon, of the eyes of the other women on him and his small procession as they make their way to the center of the settlement.

"Take better care with possessions you don't wish to lose, Freda," Hannibal answers, without denying her accusations.

"Have you at least kept what you stole?" she asks, her eyes sweeping over Will, then Ymir and Brunn dismissively.

Hannibal chuckles, shifting his seat and allowing his body language to soften.

"Fredrik is fine," he says, and Will startles. "Happier in my keeping than yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Freda is of course, Freddie. The axe probably also has a name unfit for polite company.  
> -stela, to steal/to rob.  
> -beta'd by the awesome Quedarius, (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), a viking warrior queen in her own right.


	19. nauðsyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because Imperium is coming," Hannibal says. "Fast and hard enough that Will dreams signs without seeking them. Fate is closing in on our squabbles and petty disagreements."
> 
> Britta tips her head, raising a shoulder and regarding Hannibal with a peculiar intimacy, the air of someone who has longstanding knowledge of who they are looking at. 
> 
> "As you've said," she agrees.

"I can see what it would do," Britta says, after hearing out Hannibal's proposition. "But not why I should accept you as a champion when we are perfectly capable of championing ourselves."

She is not boasting. Will has never seen so thoroughly armed and quietly hostile a camp. It is clear that Hannibal and his party have made them anxious, that they are unwelcome interlopers making a bid to subdue them, perhaps. Will expects they have endured many such attempts. 

"Because Imperium is coming," Hannibal says. "Fast and hard enough that Will dreams signs without seeking them. Fate is closing in on our squabbles and petty disagreements."

Britta tips her head, raising a shoulder and regarding Hannibal with a peculiar intimacy, the air of someone who has longstanding knowledge of who they are looking at. 

"As you've said," she agrees. 

Will realizes she is baiting Hannibal, attempting to lead him into the faux pas of pride that any insistence that Britta should _need_ them would be.

It is clear she does not - or at least that she hasn't to this point.

Will watches them circle, letting Hannibal speak and supposing that they must neither immediately agree to a compromise.

They are well matched, at least. Suitable leaders for the places life has built for them. 

He becomes aware of the sensation of eyes intent on his back while he sits patiently at the outskirts of the circle of conference being held at the center of camp.

When he turns he finds the redheaded warrior's eyes on him, staring openly in interest. The heavy, long handled axe is balanced across her knees, her hands folded nearly companionably over the points where it rests on her knees.

The woman - Freda, Will remembers - smiles at him with an unsettling attempt at seeming alluring. It comes across as intense, nearly demanding. She cocks her head and makes a 'come here' gesture with her chin. Will allows his curiosity to get the better of him.

He touches Hannibal's shoulder to indicate his careful disentanglement from the conversation. He does not seem necessary to the careful sounding out of exact intents between the two leaders.

He will not be far, if Hannibal needs him.

Freda's smile turns genuine as Will approaches, and she shifts aside, nudging her neighbor to make room for Will to sit.

He finds himself between her and a woman with night black hair and strange dark eyes that seem set permanently somewhere between a scouring look and a brilliant smile.

"Is what he says true?" Freda asks, tipping her head in a coquettish expression that Will is positive is an act.

"That Imperium is coming?" Will isn't sure what statement in specific he's being asked to validate. 

The other woman interjects, pulling Will's attention. She has an honest, eager curiosity.

"That you're the Seer," she says, satisfied to catch and hold his attention away from Freda.

"Of course he is," Freda answers, peering around Will at her companion. "Look at his eyes." 

The dark haired warrior does, leaning forward to see better. Will endures her curious gaze as she takes in his unusual blue eyes, the faint inner light that seems to leave them shining even in shadow.

She makes a satisfied sound, and smiles crookedly at him.

"I'm Bávǫrr," she says, offering her hand to clasp as a man might, with the same kind of confidence. 

Will finds himself compelled to take it, rather than risking offense.

"Is it true about Fredrik?" Freda recovers the conversation at last.

Will finds himself lost, the conversation moving too quickly from one subject to the next. He tracks back, remembering Freda's conversation with Hannibal before the negotiations had begun.

"You know Fredrik?" he asks, answering a question with a question. 

Freda smiles wickedly. "He used to _belong_ to our tribe."

She puts a particular stress on 'belong' that tells Will clearly what she means by it - he had been their slave.

"We've had to do all our own cooking and cleaning."

Bávǫrr laughs in response, as if at an old, private joke.

Will is amused by the image as well, though he tries not to smile. He has little doubt the experience of being forced to do 'women's work' had left Fredrik humbled and humiliated. Will supposes that was why Fredrik had been so careful to keep his history to himself. 

"He hasn't wholly escaped having duties," Will answers. "But Hannibal has given him freedom."

"Was he remotely grateful for it?" Bávǫrr laughs, "Or his usual sour grapes?"

Will shakes his head.

"You do him a disservice," he says, his humor at the knowledge somewhat soiled by the memory of what danger the man was in, that he had ridden into because Hannibal had asked him to.

He turns his attention back to the conference between the two tribe leaders, to the silent, severe woman sitting at Britta's side. She listens without venturing an opinion. On her other side, a guard sits, dark haired and just as quiet, but Will has already guessed which of the two is the heir.

She had emerged from a tent adorned with images of charging boars. He had rarely seen two sights that seemed not to fit each other so completely. Margret was young, but her eyes drifted distant almost always in memory, as haunting as a ghost. She stepped carefully, not at all like the tusk-brandishing boars that adorned her tent.

Even now she does not look up, simply letting the world wash past her awareness like an old oak standing in the rushing waters of a spring-swelled stream. 

Though her past has marked her, left her with battle scars on her soul, Will wagers she has not broken beneath the weight.

"Imperium is coming," Will repeats at last, glancing at his new companions to gauge their reactions. Both seem pleased with the thought of a challenge. Freda's hands move over her axe in a fond sweep, as if gentling an anxious animal.

"Will Lord Britta-"

" _Lady_ Britta," Bávǫrr corrects, amused.

"Will she agree to give us aid?" Will finishes, hoping not to find himself deflected.

It's Bávǫrr that answers him again, following his gaze toward Margret.

"Can't you just See the outcome?"

Will sighs. As many times as the question has been asked, he should long since be used to it.

"I don't often see my visions come entirely to pass," Will says. "When I look, the intent is to change what I See."

Freda gives a single shouldered shrug. Bávǫrr makes a close gesture of not knowing, either.

"Britta will do all the talking, to see if Lagbrotna can bend his pride enough to honor what he will be made to promise," she says. "But in the end, it's Margret's decision."

"And can she really unite the tribes?" Will asks, curious to hear it from Britta's own people.

"Together they can," Freda offers, flippant. "The tribes need all three excuses - and I suppose we're really no better. Heritage, a man to lead us, and Imperium to threaten us. It might just do." 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Bávǫrr is Beverly. She gave me fits to find an appropriate name for. A.) her name is English and a man's name and did not come into widespread use for many many years after this would be set (like a thousand. Like a thousand years.) I couldn't find anything remotely close, it has no roots that go back very far, and it just doesn't seem to be a name with any Norse origins at all. The meaning is something like Beaver Stream, and I did find a direct translation of the norse words 'beaver' and 'stream' but the result was pretty special-character intense so honestly I just dug until I found a norse name that started with the same letters and sounded similar. Now I cannot find any information on this name except it's mention in a text naming old dwarves. In fact amongst a list that sounds pretty familiar:   
>  Austri oc Vestri, Alþiófr, Dvalinn,  
>  Bívǫrr, Bávǫrr, Bǫmburr, Nóri,
> 
> So um a.) I appear to be discovering that most of Middle Earth is heavily inspired by the Norse language, etc, and b.) Beverly is Bofur. I'm sorry I have no other options. I do not have a meaning for this name, either. If you'd like to see the text I pulled from, in both the Norse and translated, it is here:  
> http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ietexts/nor/nor-9-X.html
> 
> -nauðsyn, a need


	20. stafkarl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It becomes apparent that no decision will be reached the first afternoon. Though Hannibal keeps face, manages to warm them to the idea, he cannot quite sell Britta a commitment. She offers them dinner, which Hannibal and his men eat in ostracized solitude, and a tent with a partition in which to sleep. 
> 
> In all it could be worse, though the hospitality is hardly lavish.
> 
> "She drives an even harder bargain than I remember," Hannibal laments, stirring his food more than eating it. 
> 
> Will watches him, studying Hannibal at a loss - it may well be his only chance to see him without his usual confidence.

It becomes apparent that no decision will be reached the first afternoon. Though Hannibal keeps face, manages to warm them to the idea, he cannot quite sell Britta a commitment. She offers them dinner, which Hannibal and his men eat in ostracized solitude, and a tent with a partition in which to sleep. 

In all it could be worse, though the hospitality is hardly lavish.

"She drives an even harder bargain than I remember," Hannibal laments, stirring his food more than eating it. 

Will watches him, studying Hannibal at a loss - it may well be his only chance to see him without his usual confidence.

They have taken one half of the divided tent, offering the other to Ymir and Brunn. The two seemed content to hide there, intimidated by the strange circumstances.

Will knows the question is coming by the way Hannibal's gaze moves slowly to settle on him, expectant and heavy.

He waits for Hannibal to ask it anyway, enjoying freedom from the burden of anticipating the needs of his lord. 

"What can we give them?" Hannibal asks at last when he senses Will isn't going to answer automatically. 

It is a small pleasure, demanding to be treated as an equal, but one that Will feels acutely.

"Nothing they don't already have," Will says, enjoying his chance for the advantage.

Hannibal's mouth firms in an intrigued expression and he tips his head to bid Will continue while he listens.

"Britta and her tribe do not want to be seen as needing anything," Will explains, "And in truth, they do not."

Hannibal listens, cued that there is more by Will's tone and expression, intent.

"We must be the ones who appear in need, not offering. _Asking_ ," Will suggests. The thought had come to Will slowly, as much a result of the insight his gift had given him as his time conversing amongst the women.

"Begging," Will expands, "If it comes to it."

Hannibal looks as though it is hard for him to swallow. He does not enjoy the thought of publicly losing face - but, Will thinks, his pride will be less in the way than that of many other lords.

After a moment, Hannibal nods, allowing that there is wisdom in the advice even if he does not entirely like it. 

"Will that garner their aid?" he asks, seeking a certainty in a shifting sea of possibilities. 

It is the first time he's asked such a question, the first time he hasn't seemed to have an innate understanding of Will's gift. It is a very human question.

"It's more likely to than a demand, and far more wise than letting Lady Britta test you until she finds the failing point in your patience for diplomacy."

"Is that what she's after?" Hannibal muses, enjoying the thought.

Will wonders how they know each other - it's clear that they do, when they speak. It does not matter for the mission he and Hannibal have come on, nor, Will supposes, should he ask. There is already enough to consider. 

"Did you really steal Fredrik?" Will asks, unable to fully stop _that_ curiosity.

"He was far less fiercely defended than you were," Hannibal smiles. It is likely the only answer Will is going to get, unless he can coax the story from Fredrik himself. 

For a time they are quiet, while Will considers the new information about Hannibal, and considers what else he might not know about the man. 

It is the first time in a long time that Will has been curious for his own purposes.

"Thank you, Will," Hannibal says, starting to lift himself to make ready for bed.

Instinctively, Will catches at his wrist, curling his fingers over warm, scarred flesh. It makes Hannibal hesitate, lingering off balance between sitting and standing. 

Now that he's done it, Will isn't entirely sure what he intends by it. Perhaps simply to express gratitude for Hannibal's trust in him, for the freedom he had never been offered before.

Then, Hannibal leans, and Will pulls him closer, half rising into it.

The kiss is slow and sweet, and Will tells himself he should stop it before it goes further than he intended, despite the statements already being at odds.

He does not stop.

Hannibal's mouth is warm, welcoming and he is a surprisingly gentle kisser. Will closes his eyes and tries not to let himself think too much, as Hannibal slides his fingers through Will's hair, touches his cheek and neck gently, reverently. His fingers are rough with use, the skin hardened from sword work and labor.

 

He is smiling just a little when they draw back again, needing air and space to gather themselves. It is not so smug or victorious a smile as Will might have worried. 

"Would it really cost you your gift?" Hannibal asks, without taking his hands off Will.

For once, Will does not feel like his Sight is the only factor that matters - to Hannibal, it is only a part of Will and not the entirety of his value. The answer he gives will not change the outcome, but will ease Hannibal's curiosity.

"Would it stop you if I say yes?" Will asks, answering a question with a question.

Hannibal's hand moves against Will's cheek. He shakes his head.

He had not expected the answer to relieve him as much as it does, but ease suffuses Will at the knowledge.

"But I would stop if you asked," Hannibal tells him,"No need for an excuse."

Will wonders when the bait for his trap, the truly tempting offer that Hannibal could lay out for him, had become something as simple as respect.

It does, however, work. 

Will leans in for another kiss. Shorter, this time. 

When his mouth is on Hannibal’s, his thoughts go quiet and still under the pulsing rush of his blood in his veins. His own heat seems pale in comparison to the sweet warmth of Hannibal’s tongue. He doesn’t know why, but Will wants more of it - wants more _something_ , more _everything_. It’s quick, blazing fast to his slow-moving mind and Will knows he should think about it, or at least not go fully on instinct.

Much as he tries, however, he cannot bring himself to ask for the time. His darkest thoughts creep slowly in to argue that he cannot be sure how much time they will even have.

When the shouts raise in the camp around them, Will finds his hands tangled in Hannibal's tunic and hair - the braid surprisingly soft in his fingers.

He is leaning - practically in Hannibal's lap. He can feel the quickness of his own heartbeat, and the matching pace of Hannibal's and his heated skin through his clothes.

The cries are alarms that wake them both from the slow dream of time and privacy. 

"What-" Will asks, having heard only the tone of alert.

"A rider," Hannibal answers.

They untangle quickly, guilty on Will's behalf and apologetic on Hannibal's. His braid trails in loose wisps, undone and shining silvery brown. Will brushes his hands through his own hair self-consciously.

Could Imperium have come so far already? He and Hannibal leave the tent, stepping out into the active hive of the camp.

"Who is it?" Hannibal asks, raising his tone authoritatively. The nearest woman answers - Bávǫrr, to Will's surprise. She wears a terrifying and strange helmet, and a metal breastplate that is scaled like a fish, over fierce black and red war paint on her face and arms. Will would not want to face her on some unknown plain of battle.

"A rider from the south," she answers, then grins, "An imperial scout, maybe." 

Hannibal turns suddenly and moves with purpose. Will sees the light of determination in his eyes and follows, out of the way. 

He walks without hesitation to the gathering of warriors at the southern edge of the camp and Will finds himself drawing up next to Margret, Freda leaning nearby on her axe. The rest of the group is mounted, watching the southern darkness with attentive stares.

In the far distance, he thinks he can see a light shape coming - a horse perhaps, though it is hard to make out in the darkness.

"If he does not halt," Britta says, atop her dun horse with her eyes fixed on the approaching shape, "Shoot him."

Her silent, dark haired guard lifts her bow and draws it without question, aiming expertly.

The horse is gray, Will thinks, and he cannot make out much of the rider - slung low in the saddle for speed, perhaps. The gallop is full tilt and panicked, a graceless headlong charge.

"Rider, turn back!" Britta's voice carries loud and challenging into the night. "You trespass!"

The horse gallops on and now Will can almost make it out clearly. Something is wrong.

Britta hesitates only a second.

"Fire," she commands, her tone pitched lower.

"Don't shoot," Hannibal countermands suddenly, but Britta's guard does not so much as spare him a glance, completing her draw.

Hannibal lunges, grabbing the bottom recurve of her bow to send the shot wide. She rounds on him in a sudden fury, shoving him back with the bow and reaching for her sword to draw it. Her horse lashes out with his hooves. 

Hannibal struggles to get his sword free for defense, and women round on him, hemming him in, weapons rattling free of their sheaths. The approaching rider is, for the moment, forgotten in the face of his more immediate danger.

"It's Fredrik!" Freda's voice cuts the tension, in the moment of stillness before the massacre. "Lady Britta, It's Fredrik!"

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -stafkarl, a beggar  
> -Beta Read by the extremely helpful Quedarius, (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), who also did 19 and whom I forgot to mention there, which is probably why I need a beta reader! Oops.
> 
> -Okay folks I know I said I'd update this more frequently and I promise I haven't forgotten! I know this update is late, and I have to unfortunately tell you that this will briefly be on Hiatus. Why? Because for the next 2 or so weeks I have 3 jobs and life responsibilities to take care of. I promise i will keep writing it but I may not have time to transcribe & edit chapters for you. So hopefully when I get back (sometime after the 12th) I'll have a backlog of updates to keep rolling a little more smoothly! I'm so sorry for the long wait, I hope you guys don't all take off and forget me. :) On the upside, Illiad's second chapter will be up a little later this week, and there's a couple of other things on the way for ACCA in the meantime. Thank you so much for your kind words, comments & encouragements! See you folks again soon.


	21. suðri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The horse does not slow as he comes nearer, though he stumbles and his breath screams out of him like a howling storm. His rider is a flattened shape on his back, slumped over the horse's neck. Something is further wrong, Will thinks, but with his heart in his throat it is impossible to reconcile just what yet.
> 
> The horse stumbles as he tries to draw up, before he can crash headlong into the group of waiting warriors. Only Hannibal reaching up to seize the bridle keeps him steady enough to keep him on his trembling legs.

The horse does not slow as he comes nearer, though he stumbles and his breath screams out of him like a howling storm. His rider is a flattened shape on his back, slumped over the horse's neck. Something is further wrong, Will thinks, but with his heart in his throat it is impossible to reconcile just what yet.

The horse stumbles as he tries to draw up, before he can crash headlong into the group of waiting warriors. Only Hannibal reaching up to seize the bridle keeps him steady enough to keep him on his trembling legs.

Two long arrow shafts protrude from Fredrik's back and Will is rushing forward to see if he's alive before he can think about it, pulling at Fredrik's slumped form and finding it stuck fast to the saddle. 

The gelding shifts and tries to keep his feet beneath him with all of his muscles quivering in exhaustion.

"He's tied himself to the saddle," Will tells Hannibal, braving the horse up when he reels suddenly in Will's direction.

A knife appears in his peripheral vision, and Will jerks away as Freda lunges in to cut the straps binding him to the saddle, releasing the limp weight into Will's arms. 

The sudden shift in balance sends the horse to his knees in a heavy collapse, half dragging Hannibal down with him.

When they sort themselves out, Hannibal takes the limp body from Will, broadcasting his voice until the situation falls into his control. Britta allows it.

"Get cool water," he tells Will. "Not cold, but cool. Wet the horse and scrape the water off of him until his temperature normalizes. He won't be hot to the touch."

His tone is low and urgent, cutting through Will's rising panic to get him moving.

"If he survives cooling, give him as much lemon water as he'll take." 

Will is moving before he thinks, finding a bucket pressed into his hands. He draws water up from the well in a rush.

He finds himself working alone, running water over the gelding's shaking muscles, then slicking his hands over the skin to sluice the water off so he can repeat the process. 

The horse's breath is quick and tortured, his heartbeat a thunder that seems to resonate through both of them while Will works, frantic. He makes soothing noises as he works, knowing that the longer the horse is off his feet, the less likely it is he'll ever get back onto them. 

The task absorbs and engulfs him, pressing his mind into a quiet place. Finally, the horse gives a slow, massive heave and hoists himself back onto his trembling legs. Relief floods through Will as he tries to remember the next part of Hannibal's plan, watching the horse move slowly, stiffly, but with slower breathing, with less feeling of urgent collapse.

_Lemon water,_ he remembers, but he does not know where to even begin looking for lemons. Will stops to gather his thoughts, rubbing his eyes with his wet fingers.

"Hannibal," he laments aloud, "How am I going to find lemons?" 

It is the first time he realizes he is alone, and the implications sink in. He does not know if Fredrik is even still alive.

"Seer?"

The voice is unfamiliar, and Will looks up.

It belongs to the dark haired woman he has seen often in Margret's company. The archer who had not hesitated at Britta's command to fire at the approaching rider.

She's carrying a bucket, heavy and sloshing with water and laboring to lift and steady it with both hands. Will can smell a sharp citrus scent, and realizes what she has brought him.

He rushes to help her.

"It's oranges," she explains of the round, bobbing shapes in the water. "We had no lemons."

Will laughs a little - helpless to stop himself as his tension breaks. The gelding drinks greedily from the bucket, and then pulls one of the peeled, juiced oranges from the water and begins to eat it. 

"I'm not sure the lemons were important," Will confesses, "Hannibal gave me a task that kept me out of the way." 

He takes a deep breath, finds the woman watching him, thoughtful.

"Is Fredrik-" he asks, suddenly needing to know.

"He's alive," the woman reveals, and Will feels another wave of relief. "One arrow penetrated neatly through the shoulder, the other struck bone and broke. He's taken a fever."

It does not sound good, a near miss if the festering wounds did not claim him, but it is not the death Will saw for him. Perhaps Will's warning had spared Fredrik.

"The arrows were fletched and ringed in red and gold," she reveals. "Imperium colors."

There can be little argument that Imperium is coming with so dire a messenger, even a silent one.

"Thank you," Will says. "For both the news and the water."

She inclines her head, accepting his thanks. 

"I'll take the horse if you want to go to him," she offers.

"Please," Will says, grateful.

"I'm Alannah," she introduces herself with an even and practical tone, "Margret and Britta's guard."

"Will," he answers. They grasp hands as equals. "I owe you a favor."

She smiles - nodding to accept the favor owed. He wonders how often she is pleasantly surprised, thinking of her serious expression as she had drawn her bow.

Will leaves the horse with her and seeks Hannibal, bracing himself against the extent of Fredrik's injuries. He finds Hannibal in Britta's tent, with Fredrik laid out flat on a mat, covered in blankets.

"There were no more lemons," he answers Hannibal's unasked question, finding the dark eyes settling on him when he enters. 'But she's cool and taking water."

"Good," Hannibal praises.

Will settles down at Fredrik's side, reaching out to touch his hand, covering it in both of his own. The skin is hot to Will's touch, and he does not respond to the contact - still out cold with fever.

"I'll do it," the voice is soft, unfamiliar, lifting in response to a discussion Will had missed the start of.

Fredrik's skin is pale. his eyes dark and sunk deep even while they are closed in rest. Will does not look up, letting the conversation happen around him.

"I couldn't, without you," Hannibal answers humbly. "I am indebted for your aid."

"Be sure to say that where the other Lords can here, once we have gathered them," Margret intones, flatly. 

"Will we have time to gather enough if Imperium is already amongst the Surdik?" Britta asks, striking the other two leaders to silence.

Will pushes Fredrik's damp hair from his forehead, gently. Fredrik does not wake.

"We will buy it if we must," Hannibal suggests into the nervous silence. "I will draw the army, and hold them at Ró, while you gather what tribes you can muster together."

It is not a promising role, that of bait. Will looks up then, at the three serious-faced leaders. It is a lot of faith for Hannibal to have, when it would give Britta a chance to eliminate a rival simply through inaction and then sweep down on Imperium while they were distracted.

"It's dangerous," Britta says, smiling - she has felt the whole scope of the possibility laid in her lap, and likes her opportunities. 

"It is less dangerous than simply waiting for them to smash us all separately," Hannibal answers, as confident as he ever sounds. 

"Then we'll do it," Margret confirms. "Hold strong if you truly have faith in my claim, Hannibal."

Will cannot see how this suits Hannibal's plan to settle himself at the head of leadership. Instead it is dangerous, and may not reward him. 

It is also, Will realizes, what he had been advising Hannibal to do - to stop jockeying and trust in Britta and Margret - to lead by the example of making himself the first to respect their claim of ascension. 

The fingers cradled in Will's hand twitch, and Fredrik coughs himself awake, opening glassy and fevered eyes before they roll wildly, unable to detect anything around him that is familiar.

Cloudy with confusion, his gaze lands on Will, and then it clears to relief.

"Where are they?" Will asks, reminding Fredrik of his mission. The change in his expression wipes it clear of gratitude at recognizing Will. 

"Only one Surdik tribe survived," he says, earnestly, "And they are running before the storm."

His tone is distant, dreaming.

"Death lays on all the plains south."

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- chapter title, south  
> \- Hannibal suggests lemon water because lemons are high in electrolytes, not that he would know the term. Simply that they tended to hydrate you a little better. Oranges are okay also.   
> -I think, with Alannah, everyone is introduced except one person. He's on the way soon, I promise!  
> -Beta Read by the extremely helpful Quedarius, (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), to whom we should all bring lemon water whenever she is thirsty for her amazing work. Unless she doesn't like lemons.


	22. heimta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will reaches cautiously into the future, searching for hope amongst the warnings he has already seen. He knows the stag as the face of the Imperium now - black and regal as death.
> 
> He can feel its lingering presence; a warm living body at his side when he sifts through the shifting lines of the future. He has never felt so acute and insistent a looming as this animal, but he knows somehow that it is the future.

Will reaches cautiously into the future, searching for hope amongst the warnings he has already seen. He knows the stag as the face of the Imperium now - black and regal as death.

He can feel its lingering presence; a warm living body at his side when he sifts through the shifting lines of the future. He has never felt so acute and insistent a looming as this animal, but he knows somehow that it is the future.

He is not seeking Imperium - or rather, he is, but he is looking for where it _isn't_. The lines feel slippery and uncertain to his 'touch', shifting and changing with his recent actions and Hannibal's.

Finding the shining thread of his own fate, Will realizes it is the only one that is not wavering under his touch.

Despite the risk, he reaches in, lets his awareness settle and overlap. Hannibal stands at the edge of a cliff and Will can hear the pounding of the waves below, can feel them trembling through the ground beneath him like the wrath of the gods themselves.

The salt and sweet rot of the ocean settles in his nose, against his tongue. Will has not smelled it since he was small.

Hannibal is looking over the edge down into the sea, a desperate tension in his shoulders. When he turns to smile at Will, there is a manic edge to it.

Will turns slowly, away from him, compelled to search behind them. He knows, suddenly, that the roar of the waves is covering the pounding of hooves.

The riders are many, their horses running open-mouthed and lathered. Will can see bronze helmets with their strange, savage manes of hair, and light glints off their dusty breastplates.

The front line of soldiers lift their bows at a full gallop, aiming with confidence. Will backs up a step.

"Will," Hannibal's voice is rough with urgency. "There is only one way."

He does not know if he's more afraid of the fall or the archers.

"We'll die," He says, looking back at Hannibal.

"I do not find my peace in the water," Hannibal tells him. "Trust me."

The first shot clatters down behind them on the rocky cliff, and Will turns, backing away as another arrow comes down short - but not by much.

He does not have time to ask if Hannibal finds peace via an _arrow_ before the man wraps his arms around Will's waist and pulls him backwards.

The next arrow falls where he had been standing, and Hannibal pulls their bodies together, protectively. They back up two steps, three, and then Hannibal throws his weight backward to carry them over the edge.

An arrow flies after them, above them. Will realizes - before it turns slowly and begins to fall like they are - that the marksman had never expected them to go this far. It seems endless, and Will's breath rushes out of him to blend into the wind gusting past them, tasting of salt.

It is the shocking cold of the water that jars Will free of the Sight. He can feel it closing cold and final over his head, but Hannibal does not let go of him and they sink deep as he returns to the present.

Dawn leaves the sky turning grey, promising a cloudy day, dark with late spring rain. Will finds himself gasping air, hands turned to claw at nothing as if seeking the surface.

When only air fills his lungs and he finds no pressure of water on his skin, Will relaxes slightly.

Finding Hannibal's attention fixed on him with concern, Will takes another deep breath to finish gathering himself.

"What is it like?" Hannibal asks, after a moment. His tone is genuine, curious. Will supposes it's only fair to answer, given what he knows of Hannibal's gift and its methods of operation.

Will sighs slowly.

"It varies," he admits. "Usually when I go seeking, it is just like this. Seeing, hearing, living, though out of all context."

A thick, fat rain drop lands heavily in the dust near where they sit. They have been dismissed to wait on the results of the venerable Healer's opinion. Will feels anxious for the results - wishes the wizened old woman had allowed them to stay while she assessed Fredrik's sour wounds.

"It is why you shouldn't reach into your own," he continues, simplifying as much as he can. "There is a danger of losing yourself. Nothing will jar you free if you spend too long. You become at ease amongst your own thoughts."

Hannibal nods, listening. Another drop of rain impacts the earth.

"When the visions come on their own, they take strange forms."

"Like your dreams of the stag?"

"Yes," Will agrees, "How did you know they were visions?"

"The black stag is their symbol," Hannibal explains, mildly. "They carry standards into battle." 

Will accepts the answer with amusement at the simplicity of it. He had expected something more, some instinct or aspect of Hannibal's gift lending him insight that others might not have had. He has spent too long immersed in a world that revolved around what they could do.

"What did you see?" Hannibal asks.

"We're going toward the ocean," Will says, carefully. He isn't sure he wants that future to come to pass; he is not sure the fall won't kill them, or what the purpose of it will be.

"There were steep cliffs, but the sound of the ocean carried all the way up," Will remembers, "Each wave almost seemed to resonate all the way up to us, you could feel it in your feet."

The note seems to strike in Hannibal at the last part of the description. Will can see the chord of recognition plucked. 

"We're leading the Imperial army there," Will says.

"It's a long way from where they are."

Will nods. It was a long way from them to Ró, but they would cross the distance no matter what.

"But, it will buy us time to send Ymir and Brunn back to fortify Ró and ready the army." Hannibal thinks aloud, his eyes half closed as he plans. "We'll need to catch them and draw them - but be certain we anger them enough that they take the hook."

"There are so many," Will says, struck by the immensity. "What if they overrun us?"

Hannibal smiles, and it is a slow, easy thing.

"They are the fish and we the fisherman," he asserts. "We will tempt them and string their pride enough." 

His attention turns acutely onto Will, then.

"It is a strange way you would make me king," he observes in an undertone. "To surrender authority and offer myself as bait."

Will cannot help his laugh.

"First we must be certain that something remains for you to be king _of_. Then, your wisdom and actions should speak of your virtue for leadership."

Hannibal's expression is pleased enough that will wonders, again, if he is doing the right thing. He cannot help but append a wry observation.

"If, indeed, you display wisdom in your actions and _have_ any virtue for leadership."

The old healer throws open the flap on her tent and peers suspiciously down at them, as if they were children at pranks.

"One arrow penetrated cleanly," she assesses, something they had already known. "The other turned against the blade of his shoulder, and left the point inside.”

It is not good news, and Will finds his fingers curling hard into the coarse, dark fur of his cloak. He holds on as if his grip could keep Fredrik's health.

"I retrieved it," she finishes, unfolding a bloody scrap of cloth to reveal the rough, wicked bronze point, a small piece of wooden shaft protruding.

"The wound is sour, and he has a fever, but he is a strong man," she temporizes, "If we are careful with him, he'll live."

"Can we see him?" Will asks, raising himself up to his feet. Hannibal follows.

"Yes," she allows, though her skeptical look is back. "Do not move him, and leave the cloth over his eyes."

They agree to her terms. Inside, the tent is dark and smells like herbs and sage smoke.

"Fredrik?" Hannibal identifies himself with his voice, seeing that Fredrik's eyes are totally covered by the cooling compress. Fredrik proves to be awake, turning toward them in a tired gesture.

"If you're going to leave me here to heal," he says, his voice a wreckage of exhaustion and the failing remains of his sharp irony. "I'd rather you just killed me yourself."

Hannibal chuckles.

"Kinder, perhaps," he says, reaching down to give Fredrik an encouraging pat as Will had seen him give Kanin when the horse performed well.

"You served your part," Hannibal praises.

"Thank you," Will interprets for Hannibal, and Hannibal glances up, amused, but doesn't correct Will. "Now just get well, Fredrik."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -heimta, to recover  
> -This chapter beta'd by the patient Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), whom we are making king in an unusual way.


	23. herlið

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They ride south for two days, the pace slow to spare the horses as much as possible. They will need the speed later. 
> 
> On the second day, at noon, the road fills with retreating warriors, nomads fleeing in disarray. It is a ragged stream of desperate Surdik. They look straight forward, but their eyes are distant and they register nothing ahead of them. 
> 
> Hannibal stops a woman limping as she leads a horse. Two hollow-eyed children sit in the saddle, clinging tightly to each other, as if hesitant to lose anything else when they had so very little left.

Despite his protests against the idea, they leave Fredrik amongst Britta's tribe to recover until it is safer to move him. Freda had smiled dangerously and promised to take special care of him. Will had asked her not to, but he doubted she would heed him.

Bávǫrr had patted Will affectionately, ruffling his hair and passing him a sealed wooden container of face paint.

"So you can put on a war face," she tells him, "And it might actually scare someone."

He carries it wrapped and safe in his saddle bags, and finds it to be some comfort there. He hopes it means they can rely on Britta's word, this gesture of friendship.

They send Ymir and Brunn back to Ró, with instructions to ready the city, then they ride south. The sky stays grey and overcast, promising more rain and leaving the air heavy with the scent of it. Will's mule turns her head back toward Britta's camp once, but her steps carry her straight when Will asks. 

They ride south for two days, the pace slow to spare the horses as much as possible. They will need the speed later. 

On the second day, at noon, the road fills with retreating warriors, nomads fleeing in disarray. It is a ragged stream of desperate Surdik. They look straight forward, but their eyes are distant and they register nothing ahead of them. 

Hannibal stops a woman limping as she leads a horse. Two hollow-eyed children sit in the saddle, clinging tightly to each other, as if hesitant to lose anything else when they had so very little left. 

She does not seem to recognize him. Her eyes are glazed and distant with the shock of recent and absolute violence. She wears the aura of loss like a mantle. Will fears for what they must encounter further on. 

"Take them to Ró," Hannibal tells her, and for a moment Will thinks she will resist, that the old feuds will hold stronger than even the horror she has seen.

"It won't matter," she answers, gesturing back where they have come.

"They drink blood, their horses feed on flesh, their magic arrows seek only hearts," she despairs, and the children cling tighter together, watching Hannibal warily.

"They will wash over the land like water," she finishes, beginning to walk again, leading the horse on. She moves on in hopelessness because the motion means she does not have to remember.

"And only stop at the ocean, water to water."

Will can hear her voice continue, but not the words as she walks on.

Hannibal sighs, turning Kanin to continue down the road. 

Following, Will hopes they will meet the army before they meet the destruction wrought by it.

"Feel our way," Hannibal suggests, and Will shakes his head.

"It's too tangled," he explains as they ride. "There is no certainty what I will see before we encounter them is of any use."

"But you are confident we should lead them to the sea?"

Will shakes his head. "The sea is our escape when they trap us. The rest is your domain."

That night when they camp, they do not dare a fire. Will smells smoke on the wind. They have come through the plains that divide Ardia from Surdia, and the danger feels heavy. There has been no challenge for their presence on Surdik territory, and the roads have been clear of retreating Surdik for hours.

Will cannot sleep, instead he finds himself leaning back to back against Hannibal, keeping watch.

"I miss your tea," Will confesses, huddled under his cloak with the hood pulled up until all he sees is darkness.

"I have some," Hannibal answers.

"But it will be cold."

Will huffs out a laugh, comforted.

In the morning they catch sight of the army for the first time. Hannibal has skirted wide, given them plenty of room to maneuver. Topping a rise cautiously, they come suddenly on them. 

Below, the land is a mass of moving shapes, far enough off that at first Will cannot make sense of the writhing, black squares folding over the land and moving on it like seamless patches of cloth.

When he processes that they are marching men - countless, perfectly disciplined units that stand in squares with right angles, he is filled with immense awe. 

Will does not even find much fear. He had not known there were so many men in the world, not as more than an incomprehensible concept. To see so many at a single purpose, moving as if they shared one mind is inconceivable at first. 

"How many families-" he begins, turning to Hannibal's experience when helplessness threatens.

"They are not tied by family," Hannibal's eyes are grim, rejecting the light as he takes in the sight below and dark with thought. Kanin fidgets, revealing that there is tension in Hannibal even as he sits very still. Will thinks he is counting numbers to himself. "Or, not all of them."

He draws a deep breath, as the men march on below, so close together that Will cannot discern individual men.

"What drives them is glory, what unites them is citizenship, and what they fight for is the Imperial Council," he continues. Kanin mouths the bit in a wide, frustrated gesture that shows his teeth.

"There are so many."

Hannibal nods. He cannot argue.

"It is not hopeless," he says. "They are still men, not spirits or demons. They have left their farms and families to come here, and they think it will be simple." 

Hannibal makes a motion with his reins, and Kanin quiets. He points below, a mounted figure keeping pace alongside a square of men that seems to gleam gold. They are well armed with shields and spears and red crests on their helms. 

"That's their commander," Hannibal explains, before he turns them away, easing them out of sight over the ridge to circle around behind the army. "If we can kill him, the army may fall to chaos.

"There is a lot of power in being a general in Imperium. They have been known to issue commands to the council itself."

"Will it not fall automatically to the second in command?"

Hannibal chuckles. "No more so than a change in leadership happens smoothly amongst our tribes. Men have hungry hearts."

They turn and follow the army carefully out of the range of scouts, and Will occasionally reaches into the future - just a little - to be certain of their paths.

Hannibal waits until it is dark, until the fast moving army has settled down to camp, and he leaves Will with the horses amongst a sheltering copse of pines before he strides out with an arrow drawn to his bow. The darkness opens for him.

Choosing his place carefully, Hannibal uses height and wind to his advantage. Will sees him light the pitch at the end of his arrow, lifting his bow and taking careful aim. The flickering light illuminates the concentration on his features, lending him the hollow eyed look of a skull.

He steps aside once, and Will sees a return arrow sink into the ground at his side before Hannibal looses his. For a moment, he is a great black horned figure again, as Will had seen him that first time.

He stands only long enough to see his shot hit - seconds only, and yet it feels like an eternity to Will, seeing his figure tall and exposed above the camp. 

When he is satisfied that the arrow has landed and caught, Hannibal turns back toward Will and makes his haste to join him, swinging up onto Kanin's back with the bow slung over his shoulders.

They ride hell for leather, as shouts raise behind them, calls for water to put out the fire Hannibal had started.

By the time the Imperials have organized for a chase, Will and Hannibal have outdistanced them, running ahead and using the lay of the land to settle into a pattern of harassment and retreat until the guards get too vigilant. 

They spend what's left of the night up a pair of trees, in a hammock slung between the boughs high above the ground, their mounts left to wander below in the surety that they will not go too far.

It is tense and anxious for Will, the ropes feeling frail and trembling at every movement until they finally settle. Will cannot help but be aware of Hannibal's proximity, of the way the hammock shifts in the breeze.

In the morning, they will continue to harry the Imperials, driving and leading them until they take the bait, as Hannibal had asserted.

He knows he should sleep, and he is utterly exhausted from the lack of the previous evening.

Instead, he cannot help but to measure his breaths, readying himself to ease down into the Sight.

"Don't," Hannibal murmurs against Will's ear, touching his back gently.

When Will does not protest, Hannibal settles his arms around Will's middle. It is warm and reassuring, putting Will at surprising ease. He welcomes the touch, simple as it is.

Hannibal's breathing leaves a warm place on the back of Will's neck.

"Right now, our future is sleep," Hannibal says, his tone a low, soothing mutter. "Let the rest matter in the morning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -herlið; an army 
> 
> -I am enamored of the idea of Will painting on a war face to try and be terrifying so that may show up later.   
> -Just FYI, I know i just came back from Hiatus, but there is one more (short!) one upcoming. I have to fly out of town for 5 days, and I am sticking the next couple chapters on docs - if I get the chance and can, I'll update, but if I can't, look for the next on the 24th.   
> -this chapter beta'd by the incredible Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), whom commands the armies of awesomeness across the landscape of my silly mistakes.


	24. hrøkkva

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always they are careful to run, stinging and vanishing, with no chance against any organized counter attack.
> 
> Deeper and deeper into Ardik territory they lead, and find their efforts rewarded when the army pursues with stubborn single-mindedness. 
> 
> Hannibal's bow-wielding silhouette is enough to summon the commander, now. He mounts quickly, and leads the pursuit parties. His men show him a specific reverence, a respect that Will sees clearly written in their obedience.

By the third time Hannibal wakes the Imperium with flaming arrows in the midst of their sprawling camps, the pursuit grows hot and insistent. Guards are posted at the horse lines, after Will cuts them and scatters the animals. Patrols are doubled, then tripled when Hannibal and Will still find a way to ease past.

Hannibal delivers death to guards where he can, striking fear into the survivors until they jump even at their own allies. Will has not seen him kill before but he does it cleanly, expertly, as a man who knows the intimate touch of death well enough to mimic it with his own hands. It should be no surprise, but it is new to Will, the coldness of expression on Hannibal's face when he wipes blood from his blade - knife or sword, it does not matter.

Always they are careful to run, stinging and vanishing, with no chance against any organized counter attack.

Deeper and deeper into Ardik territory they lead, and find their efforts rewarded when the army pursues with stubborn single-mindedness. 

Hannibal's bow-wielding silhouette is enough to summon the commander, now. He mounts quickly, and leads the pursuit parties. His men show him a specific reverence, a respect that Will sees clearly written in their obedience.

The Imperials are fast and efficient, dangerous enough that Hannibal does not dare challenge them during the day. They strike at night with darkness to hide that they are only two, and to keep the Imperials from resting well.

They sleep by day, while most of the army passes to the east or west, careful to avoid habits, sometimes finding a cave. More often, they hoist the hammock and sleep pressed close together and silent, high in the sheltering pines.

Both know that the Imperials see it as a cat and mouse rather than a fish and hook.

Early in the evening of the fourth day - nearly past Britta's territory again- Hannibal rouses suddenly, disturbing Will's sleep.

He comes up groggy and slow, unused to sleeping in daylight.

Hannibal hushes him, his hand warm and dry over Will's mouth as they both look down, finding a scout's regiment - they no longer dared smaller groups - moving through the trees below them.

They are studying the ground and Will realizes they have picked up the tracks of their horses. Briefly, he worries for Kanin and his mule. Then, Will realizes that the Imperials are far less threat to the horses than their riders.

Hannibal meets his gaze, to be sure Will has taken his meaning, and then slowly removes his hand from Will's mouth.

He reaches carefully for his bow.

Below, the Imperials study the ground carefully, uncertain what to make of the milling tracks of the horses. They converse softly, and thought Will is too far to hear properly he realizes he does not know the language either. It sounds weak, when compared to the tongues of the tribes, with few hard sounds and many soft ones.

For all they search the ground, the scouts do not once look up, as small a blessing as it is. The height would afford some advantage, but also traps them, and Will sees archers amongst the men below. Experience has taught him of their formidable marksmanship skills.

A clamor raises below and Hannibal bites off a disgusted hiss when one of the Imperials appears leading their mounts. Of course they are unburdened of their saddles and trappings - those are hoisted here with Will and Hannibal - but there is no mistaking Kanin for anything but a warhorse.

The fact that there is no possible way to mistake Will's mule for anything _like_ a war horse does not deter them from capturing her, as well. 

Will watches them lead the horses away in the sinking silence, worried after their fate, and that of Hannibal and himself.

When he is sure they've gone, Will looks to Hannibal for leadership.

"Abandon everything we can spare," he instructs, shifting out of the hammock slowly. "Leave it here, in the hammock. We may hope to retrieve it someday again."

"Where are you going?" Will asks, as Hannibal begins to ease his way down the tree to which they had anchored the hammock.

"To track the trackers," he says. "They will go straight to the general with what they have found. We will go around, if we can."

Will resists the urge to tell him to be careful, thinking of how strong Hannibal's arms had felt slung around Will's middle.

He sighs and says nothing instead, turning to the task given him. He leaves the saddles and tack, the grain rations they'd kept to bolster the animal's stamina. The next cuts are harder - smaller comforts. Spices, tea, spare clothes. Will leaves the knit gloves he had worn over his shackles - the nights now were even too warm to need them. 

What is left is lean and sparse. Food, weapons. The packs he lowers down to Hannibal when the man returns, grim-faced and dark-eyed, are scrawny and hopeless things.

Will reasons to himself that what they leave now is not lost forever, that what he takes would likely be lost to the ocean, if his vision went unchanged.

"They intend to pin us against the shore," Hannibal affirms. "They have changed formation to move and encircle us if they can."

He takes up his pack, approving of the reduced weight.

"We must not let them cut us off from the sea."

Will understands. He bears up his own pack and follows Hannibal due west, into the setting sun.

It is grueling, exhausting travel over terrain that at first grows rocky, and then becomes terrifyingly flat. It is even ground, good for riding, better for riding down unmounted men.

Yet Hannibal seems to lead them on unerring, sometimes changing their course for no reason Will can see - attuned to the pulling of the closed fist of Fate in his rib cage.

The first time Will feels the faint tremor of waves beneath his feet, the déjà vu freezes him still. He has not recently walked into something he had directly forseen, not since Einar had emerged from his tent with the knife Will had intended to embrace. 

"Is this it?" Hannibal asks, turning when Will stops.

"I can feel it - the waves," Will says, "just a little. And smell the sea."

Hannibal nods agreement.

"We cannot run much further," Will says, desperate.

"We can go a way they will not follow."

Will knows his meaning, remembers now with the reinforcement of recent experience how Hannibal's arms felt around his waist. He had almost felt safe - in his vision.

"They-" Will starts. The sudden clamorous cadence of a horse at gallop cuts him off, then. Will's heart leaps up into his throat to strangle him.

"Run," Hannibal commands.

They do.

Behind Will the noise magnifies, filling the darkness with the sounds of full-tilt pursuit. Will flees, watching the shape of Hannibal's back in the darkness. 

He waits for the arrows to start falling, feeling the air turning to steel in his lungs. Each step magnifies the feeling of the ocean moving against the cliffs beneath his feet.

Then he hears it, almost lost under the chugging rush of his own breath. Ahead, the pounding of the sea; behind, the pounding of hooves.

Hannibal stops suddenly and Will crashes into him, entangling them both.

"There's nowhere else to go!" The voice comes confident out of the darkness, and their pursuers light torches, every other mounted man holding a flaming brand high so the archers on either side of them can see. The statement is a challenge that demands answer, perhaps trying to locate them by their response.

"You have your choice of my men or a fall, troublemaker," the voice - a man's authoritative, _amused_ tone - continues. "I wonder which you think will be kinder?"

Will realizes the man speaks the tribal tongue nearly flawlessly, with only a faint accent to remind Will that he should not.

"Now, we have met a lot of resistance -" it is coming closer and Will can finally make out the shapes of the approaching riders as more than just flame and glints from armor. 

The one in front rides forward at a steady pace, the others form a slowly closing circle, pushing Will and Hannibal against the edge of the cliffs.

He is heavyset, and wears authority like a crown on his broad brow. His skin is dark, lit brown and brilliant under his armor, and he wears a helmet that is a likeness to an animal, Will thinks, but not one he has ever seen. Though he looks heavier than his men, his broad chest is powerful rather than indulgent. He sits erect. Hannibal's sword makes a soft sound as he draws it.

Will realizes it is the Army's general, seeing to them himself - and if the danger weren't so imminent, Will might feel victorious that they had made themselves a big enough nuisance to warrant personal attention.

"None of it was what I'd call organized or intelligent," the general continues, "but you...

"You, I'd better sever," he concludes. "Since you know so much."

"Come and try your fate," Hannibal answers, stepping forward into the ring of light their torches make. Will makes a grab for him - the other men are archers, he well remembers.

"Your courage and cunning are not a credit to your divided race," the general taunts. "Whose slave were you? Surrender now and I'll spare you to be returned to him."

It is not an offer in earnest. The general has dark skin, but bright teeth that will sees clearly in the darkness, with a gap in the top of his smile.

Hannibal does not answer the taunts, does not raise to any of the threats. Instead he holds still, sword upraised, poised to challenge.

"Archers!" the general commands, apparently no longer amused or content to deal with them himself.

Will pulls at Hannibal's wrist, then, urging him back from this certain death. The fingers turn and splay in his grip, warning Will back, finding purchase against his belly and pushing just a little to force Will to take a step in the guided direction.

The first arrow, Hannibal sidesteps, listening carefully to the beck and pull inside him. Will can see the intent _listening_ look on his features, his eyes gone dark enough to reduce the firelight around them to quiet sparks of coal. He cuts the second from the air, stepping to the side as he does so, the motion of his sword a blur. 

Defiantly, Hannibal plunges his sword into the earth, to leave a challenge standing for the commander of their enemies.

Then he surrenders to Will's urgent tug, and there is some strange duality of sensation in Will's heart when the future becomes present and divides from itself, where in his vision Hannibal had been the one so certain of their survival to plunge them over, here Will takes them and hopes.

The fall seems longer this time: the pain of impact against the water sharper, Hannibal's hold on Will, tighter. 

-


	25. vátr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Back with me?" Hannibal asks, striking his flint with trembling fingers.
> 
> "Where else would I be?" Will asks, around his sudden, violent shiver. It earns a smile from Hannibal.
> 
> "Someplace warmer," he suggests. Once the fire is lit, he reaches up over his own head to peel his wet tunic off his shoulders.

They drift almost dreaming with the tide until Hannibal pulls them from the freezing water onto some sandy shore. Will's mind has gone quiet and dark with cold.

Awareness creeps back into him like warmth and he realizes he has been awake for hours, drifting and clinging to Hannibal's steady presence. The rest blurs together between violent shivers as Hannibal builds a fire.

He is shaking too; soaked to his skin and unarmed, having left his sword and lost his bow. 

"Back with me?" Hannibal asks, striking his flint with trembling fingers.

"Where else would I be?" Will asks, around his sudden, violent shiver. It earns a smile from Hannibal.

"Someplace warmer," he suggests. Once the fire is lit, he reaches up over his own head to peel his wet tunic off his shoulders.

Will's soaking cloak is painfully cold and heavy, and smells like a wet animal.

Hannibal lifts it from Will's shoulders, and it hangs dripping from his arms, so sad and pathetic it is hard for Will to believe he had ever found it fierce. 

"Perhaps I should have left it with the gloves," Will laments through his chattering teeth.

"It will dry," Hannibal assures him.

Will eases close to the fire, feeling it wake the needles of warmth beneath his skin, his eyes on the ocean as if worried the Imperials would crawl out of it at any moment. His clothes are wet and heavy with salt, stiffening as they dry.

"Where are we?" he asks. 

Hannibal takes up a stick from the fire, extinguishing the burning end against the beach before making a shape like an open mouth in the sand, indicating a coast. 

"We have come across the ocean here," he says, bisecting the open shape with a line. "From the tail end of Surdik territory back to Ardik. The Imperials will need to come around, and we have come closer to home."

He laughs. "It is not a shortcut I would usually dare."

"Let's not repeat it," Will agrees, flexing his thawing fingers. "You left your sword."

"It would have been only a weight in the water," Hannibal answers. "I left a challenge. The general will bring it for me when he answers it."

"You seem sure," Will is surprised.

"General Iohannes is as predictably honorable as any Imperial," Hannibal sounds certain. "He will bring it."

He settles close to the fire also, holding out pale, shaking fingers and then smiling.

"Do all of your visions come true?" he asks, apparently counting their successful baiting and flight as a victory.

"Unless I seek to change them," Will admits - thinking of Fredrik, then back further still, to the first dream. He remembers Hannibal’s hands on his skin, the heat of the man’s mouth, the way it seemed to wake the blood beneath his skin and lift it to the surface, drawing pleasure out of him like fog might pour off a lake in the fall. 

He had been so sure he did not want that, had sought to avoid it - but now, he finds that certainty wavering. In his dreams, Will hadn’t thought twice - if only it were so easy, now. 

"So they will come to Ró."

"I've seen that they do, Hannibal, but not when."

Hannibal smiles.

"Now. They'll send scouts after us. Iohannes is hoping to keep us divided and take us one tribe at a time. A warning ahead of the army works against his plan."

Will follows, looking up to make eye contact as Hannibal continues.

"We will leave a clear trail," Hannibal asserts.

"If you say," Will is uncertain, but he is not any sort of leader. It is unsettling to bring so large a host to their very doorstep. 

He does not want them at his home. They will come anyway. 

When the sun fully rises over the horizon, they rouse themselves after a few stolen moments of sleep. They are mostly dry, but it hardly seems to matter. Will carries the damp wolf-eared cloak over his arm.

On this side, the shore is rocky but passable, and the day stretches on into misery as they walk. Hannibal points at some distant mountains, and Will realizes they must be the peaks surrounding Ró, as seen from the other side. 

He is acutely aware of their missing horses. Will supposes himself spoiled with the luxury, and makes absent motions at his own wrists.

Hannibal moves with purpose, his eyes always on the mountains and offers no conversation. Will does not beg it. His salt-caked clothes chafe and rub his skin, and thirst parches his throat. Soon, he will find hunger also.

On it goes, until his mind is a blank to deal with his raw skin, sore feet, and dry throat. He follows Hannibal automatically, thoughtlessly, and lets go of the agony as best he can.

Hannibal does not stop until it is full dark, until Will's mind is a great white blank. He draws up, turning to say something, and Will plows into him instead, still following a target that is no longer moving.

Hannibal catches him at the elbows to steady him.

Concern colors Hannibal's features briefly, and Will shakes his head apologetically - they are both tired, aching. 

"Were you injured in the fall?" Hannibal asks, and Will shakes his head again.

"Nothing so dramatic. My clothes are heavy with salt and stiff," Will turns back his sleeve with some difficulty to reveal chapped skin beneath.

"Mine also," Hannibal agrees, with a sympathetic wince.He tips his head in an indicative motion and Will follows him, taking in their surroundings with more attention now. 

They have reached the foothills of the mountains Will had seen earlier in the day and the peaks themselves loom hugely overhead, nearly impossible to take in.

At the top, there is still snow. Will hopes if they must cross they will stick to lower altitudes.

A strange, stony smell reaches Will just in advance of the sound of softly trickling water. Minerals, he thinks, some soft space in the mountains where water had found a weakness to creep through.

The air grows warmer as Hannibal leads him through the thick, dry pines, and then Will realizes it is the ground. Steam is pouring up from it, hazing the air, easing some of the stiffness from Will's clothes at last.

The spring reveals itself between low branches, a rocky pool that loses water over one side in a fall that pours away downhill. Hannibal continues ahead, reaching up to pull his shirt off in the obvious intent to get into the water. 

"Oh yes," Will breathes, feeling relief even at the _promise_ of warm water. He strips the stiff shirt over his head and drops it in the water first, leaving the cloak over a branch to steam the salt out of the fur before he throws his pants into the spring after the shirt, stripping his boots.

Will is far more interested in steaming the salt off of his _skin_.

The water is stingingly hot and Will settles in slowly, letting his body adjust. When he has settled to his neck, it is blissful and a balm to Will's sore muscles and his mind. 

Hannibal settles across from him with a splash, nudging Will's discarded shirt away from the current leading to the waterfall.

"Did fate bring us here?" Will asks, feeling far more at ease than water might ever have made him before.

Hannibal laughs.

"No, discomfort brought us here," he admits. "Tomorrow, we will have to climb. Better to do that in clothes that won't flay us slowly."

"Thank you."

Hannibal aims a halfhearted splash in Will's direction, starting a vague, lazy war of water. Will is tired enough to be playful. He has never seen Hannibal allow himself - at least not in something so simple.

It is a release of tension, a simple joy to be alive, after facing the odds. It leaves them both soaked, but warm. Cleaner, Will observes, checking his elbows, his thighs, and the nape of his neck where the rubbing cloth had seemed the worst.

"We'll have to go mostly hungry for another day," Hannibal apologizes., watching Will through lowered eyelashes. 

"We'll survive it," Will answers, and that is all they say on the matter.

Better to rest and forget.

Will finds his eyes straying to Hannibal's body, bare beneath the water. First, he seeks only the scars at Hannibal's wrists, familiar reminders that they are not so different as they seemed at the outset. Then his lingering gaze finds other scars - some small, some telling of older, more serious wounds.

Will thinks of Hannibal's history in the pits, fighting for the pleasure of powerful men. Listening to the whispers of fate telling him ever to be patient, to survive until the world came together to favor his escape.

He is not sure he would have held strong, were they in opposite places. 

"What are you thinking?" Hannibal asks, noting the distance of Will's gaze. 

"That your scars seem to suit you," Will confesses, avoiding admitting he was wondering how they would feel beneath his fingertips. 

"I earned them," Hannibal says, and there is something deeper and dark in his tone, something that catches hold of Will's awareness somewhere near the tail of his spine. 

He had been caught looking, Will knows, and for more than the tame reason he had admitted.

Hannibal extends his hand and beckons, a familiar motion to Will by now only this time there is no shame or anger at himself for obeying. 

Hannibal is warm from the water and bare as Will is. Will settles next to him, under a companionably extended arm. He brushes the backs of his knuckles over a raised scar on Hannibal's side, above the water level.

It forms a thin, raised ridge not very long. Straight and flushed pink from the heated water. Hannibal doesn't wince, but his skin reacts to the touch. It firms to bumps of chillflesh beneath Will's fingers, and he sees Hannibal's nipple harden in the corner of his field of vision.

Will thinks if Hannibal were to kiss him here, were to ask now what other Lords had once tried to demand, Will would give it.

Hannibal does not ask. Instead, he simply strokes his fingers against Will's shoulder where his hand rests and they soak in the warm water. Tired, hungry, sore - but alive.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Iohannes is Jack, if that isn't quite obvious yet: Jack being a form of John, being a form of the earliest hebrew Johannes, spelled with an I (as it's Hebrew) here because it's too early for it to have taken on the hard J sound.
> 
> -vátr, wet. Appropriate.
> 
> -Amazing beta work by the amazing Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), as was the previous chapter! May she never have to swim across an inlet after flinging herself off a cliff.


	26. skjálfa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Imperial army looms in Will's memory; impossibly large, rolling like the ocean over the land beneath it.
> 
> The waves may part around Ró for a time, beating against it like an object in the tide, but - as with the ocean - it would only withstand the might hurled against it for so long.
> 
> Perhaps long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -skjálfa, to tremble  
> -I promise 27 is coming and should be on time. Your patience will be rewarded!

Ró stands where they had left it, wild and alone atop its plateau. To Will it is a bastion of comfort and safety. It seems smaller, too, than he had recalled. 

The Imperial army looms in Will's memory; impossibly large, rolling like the ocean over the land beneath it.

The waves may part around Ró for a time, beating against it like an object in the tide, but - as with the ocean - it would only withstand the might hurled against it for so long.

Perhaps long enough.

"Identify yourselves!"

The challenge is shrill, unexpected in the mountains behind the city and yet Will is glad to hear the familiar voice and see signs of caution.

"Avigayil!" Will answers, glad in spite of himself. 

She is wrapped in furs and riding an unfamiliar bay horse, nearly indistinguishable from the red-brown rock of their surroundings. Will lifts his hand in greeting.

"Will," she realizes, before turning a suspicious eye on the other figure - Hannibal. "Lagbrotna."

Hannibal smiles and she lowers her bow after a moment of consideration that reminds Will strongly of Britta.

"Have Ymir and Brunn returned?" Hannibal asks.

"Some days ago. They said to expect you to come behind them with an army in pursuit."

"Well," Hannibal answers, with a certain pride in his own cleverness, "they are in pursuit. But they must come around to the front." 

She shakes her head at his prideful mysteriousness.

"We've arrayed the army in the guard hills," she informs them. "And sent scouts this way to watch for spies."

"Wise," Hannibal praises.

"You've lost your mounts," she observes, with a tilt of her chin.

"Captured, not killed," Hannibal says, "they will be brought with the Imperium's horses."

Will does not know how he's so certain. He hopes, however, that he has not seen the last of his stalwart mule or Kanin.

"Take mine," she says at last, offering so that Hannibal cannot assert his command with an order. It is a sting to the pride.

Hannibal bears it with gratitude and grace.

"We would be indebted," Hannibal answers, as she swings down.

Avigayil laughs, "Yes, you will be." 

Hannibal lifts himself into the saddle, and reaches down to give Will a hand up. He hoists Will up in front of him, shifting back so they both have room to be comfortable.

"Send someone up with her," Avigayil requests. "It's a long walk back and I might turn an ankle."

Her smile says that she remembers the warning Hannibal had given her. Hannibal only nods, turning the horse toward Ró.

It is a very welcome sight, Will can feel Hannibal's tension through their contact - an eagerness for home that Will feels also. He leans back into Hannibal's chest this time, feeling the strength and reassurance in his presence. 

This time, he enjoys it.

The ride is not so long as it seems, but the last few steps toward home always seem to stretch. It is worsened by the warmth of Hannibal's breath against his neck, the heat of his body where they touch. 

He is intimately aware of the closeness, feeling it like a current in his veins, like a slowly expanding sensation in his chest and belly. It is a specific heat, and it leaves him breathless with an anticipation he can't put a name on. 

Hannibal does not seem to notice - or at least not to remark until they are very close to Ró. Then, he leans in to put his mouth on the temptation of Will's neck and it fires through all of Will's nerves like a torch to pitch.

His breath stutters out of him and he _leans_ back into it, feeling Hannibal drop the reins to curl his arms around Will's middle instead. 

Heat suffuses Will and his cock stirs to interested stiffness in his pants, instinctive and somehow more delicious than it had been when his hardness had been the result of only dreams.

Will _wants_.

Hannibal marks the nape of Will's neck with the faint impression of his teeth. He shivers, as if he could count the dents left in his skin.

"Patience," Hannibal tells him, with his mouth against Will's ear and his hand sliding over Will's crotch, just once.

"I have been very patient," Will answers, finding his tone breathless and desperate.

"A little more," Hannibal suggests, with just a hint of echoing allure. There is a growl in the undertone that sends a shiver up Will's spine.

Will takes a deep breath, counting five as he lets it out.

"A little more," he allows.

This time they are greeted at the entry by Ymir and Brunn, who speak loudly over each other in a contrasting desire to both give Hannibal news of their preparations and to receive his half of the story.

"We expected you from the north-"

"The army is arrayed along the ridges, with supplies for-"

"Where is the Imperial army?"

"-to light a fire as soon as they see anyone approach-"

"No word from Britta yet-"

"Guards on every peak, in case of spies-"

"What of Fredrik?"

Hannibal weathers the storm of information and questions with some serenity. Will can still feel his fading erection pressed into the small of his back, and fights a smile.

"He is with Britta's tribe, alive when last we saw him," Hannibal answers the last question first. "But we were unable to bring him." 

"Will they give him _back_?" Ymir asks, incredulous. 

"If he is alive, we can steal him again," Hannibal says, with some amusement.

"Cheers to a fragile new peace," Brunn answers.

"Perhaps they'll return him as a token of good faith," Ymir agrees.

"With his apron," Brunn suggests.

"The army," Hannibal interjects, before the conversation can continue to delay them, "will come the conventional way. Soon. We took a shortcut across the strait."

Will snorts at the understatement.

"There is no shortcut across the strait," Ymir protests. "Not without a ship."

"There is," Will assures him, taking advantage of proximity to shift himself against Hannibal, covering the motion with the wide sweep of his cloak. He keeps one hand visible at the nape, working the other between them under the heavy fur.

Hannibal cuts his surprised grunt extremely short. 

"We swam," he says, bluntly, as a cover for his sudden surprise when Will curls a hand around him through his pants. It is perhaps, an encouragement not to engage in so much banter. 

Ymir and Brunn have no answer, and Hannibal takes advantage of their stunned silence to issue orders.

"Avigayil's horse needs to be returned to her," he suggests, shifting back from Will's touch to swing down from the saddle.

Will follows, holding the wolf-eared cloak tightly around his shoulders.

Brunn takes the reins when Hannibal offers them, and then seems to reconsider walking the horse there, instead leading it further into the city in Ymir's company.

Will says nothing and follows Hannibal back to his long hall, feeling more and more anxious to be there with every step.

He spares a thought - a prayer for Fredrik's health and safety, missing his presence as another that surely would have greeted Hannibal. 

Home is cool within, the door swinging with a faint protest as Will lets himself in. the hearth is cold and smells only of old smoke and faint, trapped damp. He is acutely aware of the empty stable, outside.

Hannibal touches Will's shoulder reassuringly, moving inside. The anxious, uncertain feeling blooms slowly inside Will as they orbit widely around each other. He could not say what had made him so bold so recently with the steely taste of waking nerves in his mouth.

That something was about to change between them - permanently and as certainly as the tides had carried them - he cannot deny. 

But why the notion wakes uncertainty and unease, as he and Hannibal rake out the old ash from the trench in the center of the long house and set something new and small in the center, Will could not say. They build enough for warmth, enough to leave coals to cook tea over in the night.

When he stumbles, preoccupied, and nearly spills a full pan of old ashes he had intended to take out to the heap in back, Hannibal steadies him. 

"Don't drift away," Hannibal says. His smile then is gentle, but still a showing of teeth like a wolf's.

Tension pulls taut in Will, to nearly a snapping point. He does not know if he more wants Hannibal to never touch him again or for the man to finally put his hands on Will in earnest - to reveal what Will has been lured toward.

For all of the time they have spent together, Will realizes he does not know what to expect from the man as a lover - he does not know if he can even suppose that such is the way their relationship would be. 

Wolf, lion, or stag - he does not know what scares him more when he knows himself a lamb in such things.

Will swallows and Hannibal lifts his hand to touch Will's throat as he does it, light pressure over his moving adam's apple.

"Will you run now?" Hannibal asks, tone low. It is not - quite - dangerous. Soft, honeyed and promising in a way that reaches out like the fingers on his skin. It is a bond - a pact that suggests Will's surrender is the sweetest option, and a threat, too, that flight might bring pursuit.

Will swallows again and this time Hannibal curls his hand around Will's throat with just enough pressure for Will to feel his own quickening pulse.

"No," Will answers, grounded suddenly. He does not know if it is terror or desire he sees in his own expression, as reflected in the dark mirrors of Hannibal's eyes.

Perhaps, just now, there cannot be one without the other.

Hannibal kisses him, pulling Will forward by his handhold and Will drops the pan of ashes, scattering them over the floor and splashing them against both of their legs. They are close enough together to share the mess.

Will finds his hands curled into Hannibal's shirt, demanding his nearness. When he becomes aware of the hungry sounds pouring from his own chest and into the kiss, he realizes he is the wolf.

-


	27. hlut-skipti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is courage in taking the initiative - in nearly stealing it from Hannibal. It is a sort of frenzy, perhaps the same that compelled men past fear and into battle. 
> 
> There is only the barest plan as to where he is intending to go, but Will runs for it.
> 
> Hannibal's hands catch at his when Will fumbles against his pants, presses his palm over Hannibal's hardness and slides it firm over heated skin through the cloth covering it. His rough fingers curl gently but firmly over Will's lifting them to his mouth instead.

It is Hannibal's bed they settle into, mouths still pressed together. A cloud of ash raises from them when they impact it, Hannibal taking the fall backwards to give Will the advantage.

He settles over Hannibal's body and finds the form of it familiar enough that it does not seem wrong against his own.

But he wants skin, wants contact - Will is done with testing the waters. He has already leapt in.

He pulls at Hannibal's belt, undoing the loop around the ring that keeps it secure over his tunic. It comes loose only to frantic tugs, Will unused to working the knot backwards. 

Perhaps to spare the rough spun fabric, Hannibal helps Will with his tunic, sitting up enough to let it slide over his shoulders, off his arms. Will discards it carelessly.

There is courage in taking the initiative - in nearly stealing it from Hannibal. It is a sort of frenzy, perhaps the same that compelled men past fear and into battle. 

There is only the barest plan as to where he is intending to go, but Will runs for it.

Hannibal's hands catch at his when Will fumbles against his pants, presses his palm over Hannibal's hardness and slides it firm over heated skin through the cloth covering it. His rough fingers curl gently but firmly over Will's lifting them to his mouth instead.

He presses his lips against the soft, healed scars at Will's wrist, and leaves a hot mark there with his mouth.

"Why are you rushing?" Hannibal asks, mouth still pressed on skin.

"So that I don't..." Will stops, uncertain how to really complete the sentence. He is rushing so that momentum carries him past any point of his own uncertainty, past the embarrassment of inexperience.

Also, he is in a rush.

His hesitation is enough for Hannibal to understand, to intuit enough of the answer to seize back the control. He turns them gently, quickly enough to prevent the sinking feeling from settling in Will's stomach.

"Then don't," Hannibal says, gently. "Let me."

His unclothing of Will is far more tender and deliberate. He lays Will's vest open, running his fingers over Will's skin as if mapping his veins beneath. His touch is soft, and his eyes follow where it goes.

Will is aware of the drag of scarred fingertips, counterpoint to how sweet the touch is. It seems to scald his skin to wakefulness, each brush of fingers over his ribs, down the dividing line of sternum, and pressing skin against shallow bone beneath.

Will sucks in a helpless, hissing breath when Hannibal's fingers first pass over, then pause to tease Will's nipples. They harden in mirror to his shifting, filling cock, and Hannibal catches the nail of his index finger against one as it ridges up. He seems to know exactly how much sting is enough to wake nerves without sending them into agony.

Then, finally, Hannibal strips him of his tunic and vest, shifting his weight off of Will. He stands back from the bed for a moment, to appreciate the sight of Will spread out upon it at last. 

Will is aware of the heaving of his chest, his lowered eyelids, his hands spread wide to curl into the woven blankets and furs beneath him. He knows he is being memorized like this, that perhaps Hannibal senses the firsts in it and wants to hold them, counting small victories.

Hannibal undoes the ties on Will's pants without further hesitation, after laying his palm over the tented front and feeling hot flesh beneath, hearing Will's breath catch at his sudden awareness of the confinement.

The pants stick at Will's hips, catch rough over sensitive skin, and his voice stutters out of him in embarrassing sounds at the pleasure in the sensation, arching his hips. The pants slide free, and Hannibal takes the rest of him in. 

Will can see the hunger, then, held in check in favor of reassuring gentleness. There is a depth in Hannibal's dark gaze that Will could dive into, more of him than Will is going to see tonight. 

Hannibal touches Will's thighs, his bared sides, and then crouches over him like a predator, arching his back pleasurably when Will's hands settle over the back of his neck.

He kisses Will once more on the lips, slow and deliberate. Tender. _Want_ has sprung up in Will's mind, now that it has eased passed acceptance. 

Hannibal strokes his hand over Will's belly, fixes his mouth at the hollow of neck and collarbone, and Will tangles his fingers into the messy braid of Hannibal's hair. It is thick and corded in his fingers, softer than he expected. 

He sighs against Will's skin, a vulnerable noise, and it touches Will like a burning brand to the base of his spine, leaving him aware of his hard, untouched cock.

"Hannibal," he breathes, not quite sure what he's asking aside from some blissful relief. He tugs the braid in his hands to be sure to impart his urgency to Hannibal's attention.

"Patience," Hannibal suggests again, sliding lower - his mouth works a nipple, stinging Will with his teeth and soothing with his tongue. It leaves Hannibal's splayed hand working ticklish through coarse hair - just above where Will wants it. The heat of his wrist is close enough that Will can feel it on his aching skin.

"No," he protests, and Hannibal stops suddenly, starting to lift himself away before Will realizes his intent. He grips the braid harder, his other hand clawing Hannibal's shoulder to keep him still.

"No _patience_ ," Will specifies, worrying the tie on Hannibal's hair until it comes free. "I've run out."

Hannibal answers with a short laugh, a deep sound in his chest that Will feels through their contact more than hears.

He curls his hand finally around Will's cock then, and it is such a blessed _relief_ that Will's grip on Hannibal's shoulders eases as he rocks his hips up into rough, unfamiliar fingers.

His mind barely has time to wholly process this entirely new feeling - nothing at all like the touches he gave himself, instead confident and firm with no hint of shame or haste - before Hannibal's mouth closes on the head of his dick.

Will's world narrows to a very small focus, a pinprick of light in a dark room. He is aware of how warm Hannibal's mouth is, how wet and amazing - the faint roughness of his tongue as he works it over the loose foreskin.

With his mind transformed into a still, quiet place, Will's body gives a hard, cold shiver as Hannibal takes him deeper. When he eases back, the air is a freezing void in comparison to the heat of Hannibal's mouth. It is only for long enough that Hannibal can stroke the skin back from the head of Will's cock gently, and this time when his mouth returns, it springs sweat up on Will's chest and shoulders, leaving him twisting up to meet it.

His fingers claw into the furs and blankets, holding against the sensation of sliding down an incline, a weight gathering heavy in his stomach, tension in his thighs and in a tight line from his balls to his cock. 

Hannibal's eyes are closed, the fine light lashes on the lids visible only by the shadows they cast. He winds Will like a coil of tightening sinew, a bowstring brought to efficiency after a long time left slack.

It is a certain vulnerability at both ends, Hannibal taking, Will taking, and both equally receiving. Will feels some thrill of uncertainty at the thought of how he is going to reciprocate, but knows that he wants to just as much as he wants this. 

Then he cannot think at all, with Hannibal sucking him deep and hard enough to white his mind out. Will's eyes are driven closed and his body arches, taut and instinctive. His muscles stiffen, lock, and hold until it bursts through him and his voice escapes after, harsh, almost a howl. Perhaps more like a bark.

It leaves Will more slowly than it came, with a fine tremble coursing through him. A strange, shuddering detachment from his own limbs. Even his teeth feel strange in his sockets in those moments until Will remembers how to breathe.

Hannibal is stroking soothing lines over Will's belly, easing feeling back into benumbed skin. Will finds his hands on Hannibal's neck again, under his loose hair, and he can feel beneath his fingertips the hot, raised lines his nails have left.

Hannibal kisses his belly, once, a strangely tender gesture before lifting himself along Will's prone body.

An instant before the kiss Will thinks to resist - too late and he can taste the bitter spice of himself in Hannibal's mouth. There is something just lewd and forbidden enough about it to be intoxicating.

"Should I find my patience again?" Hannibal asks against Will's mouth, after.

The sound Will makes is too breathless for laughter, but he tightens his arms around Hannibal.

"Don't dream of it," Will tells him, running his fingers through the long, wavy strands of Hannibal's hair. As remarkable as it is, he's never seen it free.

"We'll need some of it for what's next," Hannibal allows, his voice a tremor against Will's chest and stomach, reminding him acutely of how close they are.

He finds it a relief, a sensation of welcome, almost. 

He shoves until Hannibal lifts himself, though Will's muscles feel weak and unstrung. He knows Hannibal goes of his own wishes.

He reverses them again and finally uses his leverage to pull Hannibal's pants off carefully.

There are scars over the points of his hips, and one so low on his belly it leaves a strange jag in his dark pubic hair. Then his pants are off, baring the whole of him to Will.

His cock is thick and heavy with blood, hard and growing harder still when Will finally curls his palm around it.

Hannibal's fingers curl over his own to guide him, and they are strong, making it easy. There is something fascinating about watching Hannibal's expression open slowly, though his eyes are closed. 

He can see the changes in tension that adjusting his grip creates, watch awareness fade slowly under pleasure, and it is sweetly addictive somehow.

"Hannibal," he says, to see the man open his dark eyes and reveal the weakness that soft pleasure brings into them - and he knows it to be as rare a sight as he has perhaps yet seen. Too, Will understands suddenly that he will do whatever Hannibal asks of him. That somehow, they compel each other, compliment each other, and perhaps always will.

This is only what remains, their last barrier.

He kisses Hannibal again, and the other draws him down, shifting Will up over his hips.

"Will you see where composure takes us?" Hannibal asks, and Will nods, tucked beneath Hannibal's chin with their bodies in one long, sweet line of contact.

Hannibal is slow, careful, deliberate - thorough. In his patience, there is no pain when he finally lets Will stretch himself open on Hannibal's slicked cock, the long work of mouths and fingers and time gone before to ease it.

Will hasn't felt it's like, a deep connecting completion; sweet satisfaction at the work taken to get here. Sweat springs up on his shoulders, and Hannibal lets Will stay over him, in control. There is only the faintest and sweetest of stings when Will starts to move, Hannibal's fist curled in echo around Will's cock.

They move slow together, and Will loses track of beats of his heart, of breaths, until orgasm shatters his awareness again, a wave torn apart and foaming against a cliff. It leaves him behind as a survivor of a shipwreck might find himself, tossed from a roiling ocean onto the heaving shore.

It is morning when they sleep at last, exhausted echoes of each other in pulse and quiet minds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -hlut-skipti, a sharing (of treasure)  
> -Beta'd, as usual, by Quedarius  
> (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), may she always find the viking of her dreams. Or dream about vikings. One of the two!  
> -Thank you for being so patient! I hope this was worth the wait for you. :) More good things to come as we take a turn toward the final 10 (or so) chapters!


	28. sóttarfar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will wakes sore, stiff from the exertion of the last few days and finds it to be a sweet, bearable agony when he finds awareness with his cheek pressed over Hannibal's bare chest. He can feel the heart beating in a slow, even pace, and it eases him though his body feels heavy and mired in exhaustion.
> 
> He does not fight for consciousness long; when Hannibal lifts a hand and settles it broad-palmed over Will's back, he sleeps.
> 
> His dreams try to form themselves in images stained red with fire light - red with thick, sticky blood and gripping blackness.It is a confusion of images and a violent collision of all things possible in the soft terrain of Will's mind, sinking on needle pointed feet into the mud of his thoughts.

Will wakes sore, stiff from the exertion of the last few days and finds it to be a sweet, bearable agony when he finds awareness with his cheek pressed over Hannibal's bare chest. He can feel the heart beating in a slow, even pace, and it eases him though his body feels heavy and mired in exhaustion.

He does not fight for consciousness long; when Hannibal lifts a hand and settles it broad-palmed over Will's back, he sleeps.

His dreams try to form themselves in images stained red with fire light - red with thick, sticky blood and gripping blackness.It is a confusion of images and a violent collision of all things possible in the soft terrain of Will's mind, sinking on needle pointed feet into the mud of his thoughts. 

They sink and subside, raising only unrecognizeable shapes from the muck. All that raises is covered in tar and darkness before sinking again, leaving Will twitching and sweating in a semblance of illness. There is no self in the dream, no point where he can stand in his visions and thoughts and say 'this is me', and so he is aware of the cast boiling pit that is the future and at the same time isn't, trying and trying to solidify beneath him and push him up, real and solid and 'self'.

From the morass, points raise, like a sword plunged into the earth and mirrored, then mirrored again, black and dripping.

The points connect and lift, connect and lift, until at last the head of the animal follows them out of the thick black.

Will is the stag for that moment, stepping up from the uncertain pitch, lifting a hoof. When his feet touch the surface it grows solid and he heaves his weight out, braced on the footholds until his lungs fill with air instead of black tar, and he can heave himself onto the inky, barren, flat plain where nothing lives but the stag. The shiny onyx surface reflects back suddenly, mirror smooth.

Within the crown of his antlers, a fire blooms to life, burning blossoms that smell of sweetness and smoke, and at last, like tea.

Will wakes in an empty bed, soaked as he had been when he'd crawled out of the ocean next to Hannibal. His skin is awash with sweat, and it leaves wet patches in the linens below him. 

He feels the cold, deep chill of illness settling over him, an ache down to his bones. Full awareness comes over him with a coughing fit, and it scours him out until Will is sure he is awake and aware and all that had passed before was surely a dream.

The empty bed claws at him like the rough soreness in his chest, and Will scrambles free, hits the floor on all fours in an uncoordinated mess.

The floor is cool and soothing to his hands and forehead, and Will presses himself into it until he feels his temperature normalize. He is hot with fever, though he knows it is little more than a cold - brought on by the icy water of the ocean and exertion following his exposure.

Hannibal finds him there, crouching and clucking his tongue - once - as he measures Will's temperature with fingers that feel cool against his skin.

"When did you take sick?" he asks, tone gone low and concerned.

Will shakes his head. It had crept on him in the night like a ghost, stolen in like the dreams on confident hooves.

"Up," Hannibal orders, nearly lifting Will entire until he gets his feet under him. 

He settles Will at the table and makes tea thick with honey, which Will drinks until his throat feels less on the jagged edge of an eruption of coughing. It leaves him heavy and sleepy.

"Rest today," Hannibal commands, watching Will over the rim of his own cup - if he felt any trace of the illness, he does not show it. Damn him. "Sleep deep."

Will wants to protest - wants to be useful in the short time they have to prepare for General Iohannes' army.

Instead, he yawns and it spawns a coughing fit, and Hannibal makes him take another cup of honeyed tea before sending him to sleep.

"In whichever bed you prefer," he orders. "But in a bed - you're in no shape for anything else."

In the end, Will favors Hannibal's bed, and he settles down amongst the furs, breathing the faintly lingering scent of them together. He drifts, and wakes to the sound of Hannibal's voice and others in hushed conference around the table at the front of the longhouse.

The sound is calm, quiet, and only barely drags Will from his dreams, enough to cough a little, before drifting again.

When next he rouses, Hannibal is easing his limbs flat gently and Will is comforted by his presence. Hannibal presses a compress over Will's chest that is warm, smelling strongly of mint and almost seeming to sting his skin until the tingling spreads deeper and Will's breathing eases some.

"I was dreaming," Will admits, and Hannibal soothes his palm over Will's eyes, feeling his forehead for the heat of fever. Apparently unsatisfied with the result, he produces a second cloth rag, redolent of sweet lavender, and settles it over Will's forehead and eyes.

"Of what?" Hannibal asks, risking transmission of the cold by kissing Will softly on the cheek.

Will pushes him away.

"You'll take ill."

Hannibal laughs.

"I've been closer to you so recently that if I was going to, I already would have," Hannibal says. "What dreams?"

"Dark ones. Muddled," Will admits. "A swimming stag, a running one."

"They are coming soon," Hannibal agrees. “Ymir went out after we returned and he has just now arrived again. We gained only days on them by our shortcut and they are coming unerringly for us."

"Has there been word from Lady Britta?" Will asks.

Hannibal shakes his head.

Will does not ask if that is a bad sign - he will find out soon enough.

"Rest," Hannibal advises," recover. “I will sleep soon, too."

Will does not think he means it, and wonders what calls to keep Hannibal awake now. He finds he misses the quiet simplicity of the winter when he could wake and count on Hannibal's quiet presence and tea.

He sleeps, soothed by the mint and lavender scents, and does not dream this time, gone too deep.

He wakes to the sound of shouting, with a clearer head and the vague sensation of passing time to indicate how long he has slept. He feels warm, the fever broken and the spring growing late nonetheless. He gathers a massive, shaggy fur from the top of the bed to cover his bare shoulders as he ventures out.

It is light outside and his eyes are dazzled by it, stinging with the lack of exposure. He is thirsty, too, and feels hollow in his middle from lack of food.

Will sees no immediate danger, though there are urgent tones passing news and supposes if he has not yet encountered any Imperium soldiers, he has time to draw fresh, cool water. 

He drinks a long time, until he feels like his throat is no longer hot and red and raw. It is Brunn who spots him up and about, clapping Will on the shoulder.

"Have you become well again?" he asks.

Will allows a smile. A shrug against Brunn's grip. 

"Enough for hunger and thirst," Will says. "What's the commotion?"

Brunn's gaze goes tellingly toward the mountains. Will follows it, unable to discern much save that he is certain Imperium has not come over them.

"They made a rush in the night," Brunn answers. "And have come unexpectedly to the foot of the mountains."

There is no question which 'they' he means. 

"Hannibal intended to meet them on the other side with a harrying force," Brunn continues, gaze never leaving the mountains. 

"And now we must meet them on the slopes themselves," Will guesses.

Brunn nods.

"Where is Hannibal?" Will asks, though he worries he knows the answer.

"Arraying our defense," Brunn says. "He sent me to rally the last of the reserves to fortify Ró and make the approach ready to seal - should it come to that. Perhaps he made mention that I should check on you."

Brunn smiles, just a little, "Then I have to return."

Will claps him companionably on the shoulder, thanking him for the news. He still feels somewhat uncertain on his feet, wobbly and spread thin. When Brunn turns to go, Will finds he does not know what to do with himself. 

He does not know how long he slept.

When he stands long enough looking uncertain, he is gathered in by the unlikely figure of Avigayil.

"What are you doing?" She asks, and when she sees he doesn't know, she takes control of him, blanket and all. 

"Come and eat," She decides, looking him over skeptically.

Her motion sets him to movement, raising him from the inertia of uncertainty. In a communal tent they feed him, and the food sits heavy and menacing in his stomach, a threat of sickness not quite ended.

Will eats anyway, risking the consequences, feeling dizzied and chilled when he is finished. His stomach is delicate, but he finds he can sit up, and so he is swept into service with the heavy fur still over his shoulders. He finds himself stripping small, straight sticks with a knife so they can be fletched - a job for younger, but more experienced tribesmen.

It is only as he peels bark from the fourth shaft that the strangeness of the situation uncurls in him slowly. He has not yet lived amongst the tribe for even a year, and yet they have enfolded and pulled him in further even than those who had held him the longest. Will had been Einar's for nearly five years, held in chains and bonds and kept like an animal.

Here, he was not pampered - or at least not excessively, he allows - and only as protected as Hannibal himself. Nor was he chained or given orders. He is still not wholly sure of the course he takes, or what consequences there would be if he did not fulfill Hannibal's request for power, but he finds he is not afraid of them.

As uncertain as the future is, perhaps it would not matter. However, he would defend his home as hard as the others would. It has become something he has not had since the destruction of his tribe - a place he feels ease and welcome and warmth in.

He thinks of Hannibal out riding and assessing along the winding ways and hopes he is as confident a military commander as he is a leader.

When he grows too exhausted to sit up anymore he excuses himself, returning to Hannibal's longhouse with intent to sleep only a little. He finds it is nearly evening, the sun sinking and the quality of the light growing golden in the late spring warmth. If it weren't for the encroaching Imperials, now the Ardik would be chopping rows into the fields to plant and staying up into the lengthening nights drinking milk from the first calves and kids of the season.

He is surprised to find Hannibal at home, looking tired and a little worn. He reclines boneless on the floor with his back propped against the crossed braces of the table and legs extended, settled closer to the fire for warmth, Will guesses.

A steaming cup is in his hands, and Will recognizes the smell of chocolate - though his stomach seizes at the thought of so rich a treat - and the signs of a hard day of riding.

"The floor will only leave you more sore," Will scolds, and Hannibal's dark eyes return from their distance. 

"The fire eases me now," Hannibal answers, and Will can see the smile in the depths of his eyes, a simple pleasure at Will's presence. "Tomorrow is another matter. Have you recovered?"

"Enough to be set to fletching," Will answers, settling next to Hannibal on the floor. He endures warm fingers - for they had been wrapped around the cup of chocolate - pressed to his forehead, then again when they have cooled enough for a proper gauge. 

"You slept away two whole days," Hannibal tells him, and it surprises Will only a little.

"I may yet sleep two more."

Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise. "They'll strike first tomorrow, and Iohannes will test us hard to see if might can overcome our advantage of terrain."

It seems distant and unreal to Will, another dream. He leans closer when Hannibal settles an arm along his shoulders, and reaches carefully into the recesses of his own mind to be sure he is not, even now, reaching forward from the past.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -sóttarfar, sickness  
> -Beta'd, as usual, by Quedarius  
> (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), may she prove immune to viking colds.


	29. bil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal’s archers seem a paltry few arrayed along the ridge at the crest - three hundred at best, with boys to run arrows up from the reserves and an auxiliary force to relieve injured and exhausted men.
> 
> It does not seem enough. Will does not know what might. Perhaps the knowledge that Britta rode north with all of Ardia behind her banner, to smash against the back of the Imperium and crush the against the mountains.
> 
> “Will they try speed first?” Will asks, eyes on the cavalry - intimidatingly large and well equipped. He remembers their skill as archers well.

Hannibal’s archers seem a paltry few arrayed along the ridge at the crest - three hundred at best, with boys to run arrows up from the reserves and an auxiliary force to relieve injured and exhausted men.

It does not seem enough. Will does not know what might. Perhaps the knowledge that Britta rode north with all of Ardia behind her banner, to smash against the back of the Imperium and crush the against the mountains.

“Will they try speed first?” Will asks, eyes on the cavalry - intimidatingly large and well equipped. He remembers their skill as archers well.

Hannibal is watching the moving figure of Iohannes far below, visible as the most mobile figure, moving to and fro to give orders or inspire - of course all is inaudible to the warriors high above.

He shakes his head, frowning.

“The bastard is riding my horse,” Hannibal mutters. Will looks again. 

From this distance he can tell that the horse is bay and spirited. He trusts Hannibal’s assessment, supposing he would know his own animal, even from so great a distance.

“At least he brought him back,” Will says, though it raises concern for Kanin - Iohannes was a big target. 

Hannibal makes an angry sound between his teeth and Will holds back the inappropriate smile that threatens. Iohannes will pay for the insult.

Will has been armed with a knife, after confessing he did not have any skill with the bow or the sword, and Hannibal had told him to ride as if an evil spirit sat behind his saddle if it looked like the Imperials would top the rise.

Only as a precaution, Will hopes. 

Below, the Imperials amass themselves into formation, and Will does not have to ask what they will try if it is not speed. Strength.

It must seem madness to march uphill on a narrow path toward archers. Will cannot fathom following an order to certain death in the hopes that they could move more men up the pass than the Ardik could shoot. 

But a square moves into place at the base of the path, and stretches itself into column three men wide. 

A shout goes up below, and there is only silence above. A horse whickers fearfully and Will’s shifts beneath him, anxious.

The Imperials begin up the path in lockstep: each footfall magnified by a hundred, a thousand perhaps as they start upward over the rocky terrain.

Hannibal gives the signal to hold, and his archers wait, arrows nocked but bows lowered.

Will’s belly clenches up tight. Each footfall echoes and thunders, a terrifying drumbeat.

The looks on the Ardik warrior’s faces are intent, serious, focused. Will does not know if they feel so brave as they seem or if they must now trust Lagbrotna to see this through. The mountains shelter them, but make a massed retreat impossible.

The thunder comes nearer. Will can make out individual men now, and on the Imperials, despite the fierce helmets with manes and bronze breastplates, Will thinks he can see fear.

Hannibal raises his sword.

“Ró!” he cries, and the archer raise their bows to the incongruous war cry, nothing like rest on their minds.

“Lagbrotna!” the cry answers, at first from only a few throats, and then again in a loud challenge as archer draw their strings tight.

Below, the Imperials watch, among the front line Will sees one man has a black maned helm amongst the others - all red. 

His cry of ‘Arma!” is nearly lost, but Will sees his mouth move.

Fast as a blink, a black fletched shaft sprouts from his throat, and in the moments that follow, he crumples down under the feet of his comrades. They do not break or scatter, instead closing ranks. Each man at the edges lifts his shield and crouches, each in the center raises his shield overhead.

The square becomes a box enclosed, a metal turtle moving up the slope at a crawl. 

Will’s heart sinks.

A wall of black fletched arrows descend on the turtle and Will realizes each bronze shield is painted with a leaping black stag when the arrows fall against them, with a noise not quite like rocks hitting a pond.

It is terrifyingly effective, the rain of arrows shattering or bouncing from the shields. He sees a few strike home against the small targets of men’s legs, some sliding through gaps at the top to deliver more serious wounds.

The ranks shift to close them, injured men falling back through the column and dead men left trampled behind them. It turns a devastating strike into only a handful of casualties, and still the Imperials march on, crouched close and protecting each other.

It is nothing like the war Will has known, and he cannot comprehend the single-minded discipline. Each man knows that to keep himself and his brothers alive, he must not waver.

They are very brave, and he hopes Hannibal’s army will prove their equals in valor.

Hannibal raises his bow again, this time aiming his shot more carefully. His archers ready themselves, and Will watches him listen, wait, and then let fly.

A front shield bearer stumbles and in the space he leaves for only an instant, a dozen arrows pour, crumpling the formation from it’s vulnerable middle. Will sees bodies ejected to the sides, the formation struggling to recompose itself. It’s too late - the technique had worked once, and now the marksmen know to repeat it.

The Imperials crouch lower, stay closer together. It slows them to the slowest creeping, but it does not scatter them or make them stop. 

“How can we drive them back? “ Will murmurs, more to himself as Hannibal draws again, taking longer to find a weak point this time.

Hannibal fires, his arrow finds a mark, and some that fly after it, but the Imperials are faster to recover this time.

“We are still luring them,” Hannibal tells him in an undertone. “I had hoped he would venture more than one legion, but he is wise and they are well trained.”

Will waits for the rest, his heart thundering as the Imperials creep closer.

“Look behind us,” Hannibal says, and if his tone was not so serene, Will might have panicked.

He whips around sharply, turning his horse so suddenly that it shies and nearly throws him Hannibal reaches to grab its halter, steadying the animal.

Behind them, laboring up the final grade to their position, is a team of sweating, straining horses. They are hitched to pull in tandem, heads down and shoulders braced with the effort. They draw behind them a massive log - the trunk of an ancient tree stripped of branches and bark with haste.

For a long moment, Will cannot comprehend how it is supposed to save them. They cannot make it into a barrier of spikes fast enough to matter, and as a simple barrier it would last only minutes - perhaps an hour - until the Imperials dragged the tree aside or chopped through it.

An image forms slowly in his mind, then. It is an old memory, a place in his mind he has not gone to in some time.

A game the boys in his village had played, a test of aim and a release of boyhood aggression. They had lined up sticks, driving the ends into the ground to keep them upright - at least precariously so. 

The game had been to knock them down with rocks, heavy hand-sized things rolled along the ground until they crashed through the line of sticks.

He had never thought to apply so crude and cruel a principle to men. It sickens him, just a little, but it is a smart tactic. 

He lets the knowledge of the imminent death of those Imperials still slowly ascending settle in his stomach, where it burns and shifts as if he had eaten a bad meal.

They creep closer and closer; occasionally Hannibal raises his bow to open a space in the column’s defense, and a flight of arrows follow. They are careful with the arrows otherwise, holding their shots for best effect. 

Then, Will can hear the horses behind them, the scraping of the massive log over the ground. Hannibal slings his bow over his shoulder and draws his sword.

The legion has come three fourths of the way to the top, committed past the chance of retreat. They surge forward when they see the archers retreating, anticipating an engagement on foot.

Will cannot see their faces, and does not know how much they can see behind their massive shields, if they are looking at anything but the ground beneath their feet as they advance.

The hesitation that passes through them like a shudder as the straining horses top the rise, however, is clear to him. The handlers struggle to keep them moving, to turn the animals before the momentum of the log ceases.

The next few moments stream together in a rush - Will draws in a deep breath at the moment of no return, where the slope of the hill claims the log’s weight and starts pulling it down on its own momentum. 

The drivers loose the horses, letting them flee or leap the log, and Will sees at least one fail to make it, wincing as the log batters it off its feet and it disappears beneath. 

The men below are trapped, and Will sees them waver, faced with a decision. The men at the front hunker down, raising their shields as if anything could stop it. Will wonders if it is valor or desperation, a knowledge that they could not hope to get away with the whole legion behind them.

It does not matter.

By the time the log impacts them, it is as fast as a galloping horse, unavoidable. The effect is devastating, crushing and killing the men who stand their ground, knocking those who run from their feet or down the mountain. 

It is the aftermath that will haunt Will the longest, the crumpled bodies in collapsed armor, limbs mangled, and blood pooling and pouring, turning to small rivers that run back down hill toward the Imperials as if still trying to retreat.

It is only the space of a few minutes, and Will grows dizzy, realizing he has held his breath all this time. 

He pulls it in with a shuddering gasp, his hands tight on the he reins and his eyes still fixed on the broken remains below. The log scatters the legions at the bottom of the path before crashing to a halt, leaving the entire field drowning in silence. 

For long seconds, no one moves. Blood drips. Will is conscious of every beat of his own heart.

A thousand men lay below, dead or dying unmoving. 

Hannibal’s men erupt in cheers, victorious, having held their place and driven the enemy back for the moment. 

Beside him, however, Hannibal is quiet. The moment is not the war, and below them, Iohannes is rallying his men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -bil, meaning 'moment'  
> -This chapter beta'd by the valorous Quedarius  
> (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), from whom all legions should flee, if they know what's good for them. :)


	30. kostr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The door is a void in space— an open gaping mouth spread wide and toothless and waiting. Yet it does not want to consume but to expel. Will can not explain the conviction in him that something is about to come pouring from it, and now the doors are gone.
> 
> Blood trickles, then oozes from it, sliding over the ground and outward, reaching for Will. Thick and sticky, it covers and claims all that it touches. 
> 
> Then, the stag. Paces even and measured, eyes fixed, It comes on like a storm - the rising sea slow and unstoppable. Will lifts his hands and backs away, but he cannot tear his gaze from the hypnotic, burning eyes.

The door is a void in space— an open gaping mouth spread wide and toothless and waiting. Yet it does not want to consume but to expel. Will can not explain the conviction in him that something is about to come pouring from it, and now the doors are gone.

Blood trickles, then oozes from it, sliding over the ground and outward, reaching for Will. Thick and sticky, it covers and claims all that it touches. 

Then, the stag. Paces even and measured, eyes fixed, It comes on like a storm - the rising sea slow and unstoppable. Will lifts his hands and backs away, but he cannot tear his gaze from the hypnotic, burning eyes.

When it steps through the doorway at last it is crowned only in sweet flowers. Then, with its eyes unwavering on Will the sparks fire up, catching slowly through the flowers to a blaze. The fire grows slowly and brightly between it’s dark antlers, and then becomes blinding.

Will shields his eyes, casting a shadow over them to try and understand what he’s seeing.

The stag tosses its head and from the crown of fire, the star blooms heavy and descending in the sky. Will’s heart falters, and then it crashes, burning, into Ró, roaring and consuming what it hits in fire. Another follows it, and yet the field and the door stand silent and untouched.

Will’s gaze stays locked with that of the stag’s, triumphant. In those dark eyes are the sure knowledge of victory, the confidence of unrelenting fate.

Will does not wake until the falling stars have left all of Ró burning, the flames a ring that threatens to cook him in his skin.

Still the stag holds his gaze, and its eyes change - burning red to an eerie, luminous blue. 

Will wakes stumbling, casting his hands out wildly to catch himself, and finds he is alone in the village. A tremor passes through him, a lingering, helpless confusion at these surroundings, and Will rubs his face hard, pressing his fingertips to his eyelids to chase away the lingering image. 

When he opens them again, the door looms large in his vision. Somehow, Will has traveled, sleeping, to the subject of his dream. will takes a deep, shuddering breath. 

He approaches the door, sighing uncertainly. His visions have never done this before. Will raises a hand and strokes it over the carved wooden doors, the cool stone frame.

The door swings open slowly, startling Will. He jerks back, and has only begun to catch his breath when the shadows beyond part and admit a single figure.

The darkness seems to cling longer to the figure’s skin, a strong hand easting the door open carefully so as not to make a sound. 

Will realizes, belatedly, the skin itself is dark, as is the man who emerges. He is shocked to silence as the armed and armored figure of General Iohannnes pulls himself free of the shadows.

“Here he is,” Iohannes says, eyes fixing on Will with a strange recognition. 

It is such an odd statement that Will finds no answer for it.

“Let me have a look at you,” he says, voice moderate but still holding the ring of command.

Will shies away from his touch.

“You’re the seer, aren’t you?” Iohannes observes, looking at him like a hawk studies pray.

Will says nothing, baffled by the actions, by the attention. Why would Iohannes come here alone? Why seek out Will? 

“I had to ask about you,” Iohannes continues. “After taking note of those remarkable eyes of yours.”

Will’s heart stutters. He does not know how Iohannes is here, does not know what to make of the man’s interest in him.

“I’m told you can see the future,” Iohannes says, content to speak into Will’s terrified silences without further input.

“Now I don’t know if that’s true or not,” Iohannes continues, “But surely even without a gift, it’s evident where this is going.” 

He gives an expansive gesture, including himself, Will, Ró. He means, Will realizes, the war. He means the foregone conclusion of Imperium’s victory.

“I admit some curiosity,” Iohannes says. “They say I’m too quick to believe superstitious nonsense, back at the capital. But I have been on a lot of campaigns, seen the far corners of the known world - and reality does not stop at the edges of the map.”

Will’s mind turns over at last, and he does not need his sight to know the direction the conversation will go. 

“We will take this village,” Iohannes says.

Will shakes his head.

“We will win at least this battle, and everyone here will die,” Iohannes reiterates. 

Will shakes his head again, but Iohannes sees the knowledge in his eyes, the clear image in Will’s mind of the stag standing victorious in the streets of Ró, knee deep in a river of blood.

“You could be safe,” Iohannes offers. “I hear these savages, constantly at war, wiped your tribe off the map in a fit of covetousness. All those lives, ended because of some old feud and never laid to rest.”

His tone is confident, calm. Will realizes that he is utterly convinced of his righteousness. 

“We have come to help them,” Iohannes offers, a sweet bait to the trap he was trying to lay. “To teach them how to be civil, how to function as men should, together, heart and mind, and not the fist smashing into the self.”

“By _killing_ us?” Will finds his voice at last, and his anger to be included, even by implication, in the cause of the Imperium.

“Conquering. Teaching. Uniting,” Iohannes says. “We tried to see if the tribes would solidify, but all our patience merited was raids on the edges of our territories. Dead Imperial citizens, lost crops, stolen goods.”

Will knows of the raids - but this, this utter annihilation, he cannot comprehend as a logical response.

“Were they civilized, we would make a pact with their leader. As there is none, to protect ourselves, we must render them into something more advanced. Copper or bronze, and not plain iron.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why are you _here_?” Will demands.

“Because I find you compelling. If you really can see the future, come with me. You will be safe, you know we must win, and your place in the Imperium would be greater than that of any Barbarian lord. No more slavery or uncertainty. No more senseless warring. You would be the master of your own life, free to plead the case of these savages, if that was what you desired. Come and speak for them. Make them yours, these men who destroyed your home and family.”

A small, old part of Will wakes at the words, an anger that had faded with time, or so he’d thought. He resents his time in captivity, the death of his mother and - for all he knew - the rest of his tribe.

His kind - or kinder, anyway - treatment at Hannibal’s hands did not negate the rest. It was a faulty, destructive way of life, and he cannot say with a certainty that even this threat would unite them. 

Certainly, they had yet to hear from Britta’s tribe.

For all that, for all he has suffered, and all the suffering yet to come, Will hesitates, and Iohannes smiles broadly, charmingly in his way.

He knows hunger when he sees it, covetousness when it is shown. Iohannes _wants_ Will’s power, and it is an old, familiar feeling. He thinks Will is open to changing his bars for gilded ones, but Iohannes does not know Will has already been given a greater gift.

“We don’t need you to grow to something more,” Will answers, his tone surprisingly steady to his own ears. He is not sure he feels as certain as he sounds.

“What you say is ‘civilized’ may be true for you,” Will says, “But I see the same indiscriminate destruction that you say I should seek revenge for in your actions.”

Iohannes’ smile fades. His certainty curls up like dry, crumbling parchment on his features, and Will feels his own triumph at that.

“You’re making the wrong decision,” Iohannes warns - and here is the threat, the real detail of his offer, of _him_.

“It’s my decision to make,” Will says, backing another step away. He should yell, should kill the man himself, but he is not strong enough. 

“For now,” Iohannes warns. “I won’t offer again, the next time we meet I can simply take you as a spoil of war.”

“My fate is something you can’t see,” Will answers. “And I choose to share it with the Ardik.”

He wishes he felt as certain of the decision as he sounded, wishes he had faith enough in the tribes to believe they would support Hannibal, that they would unite and mature under his leadership, that - even for a time - they would forget their bloodthirst. 

In his heart, he knows that is why he doesn’t yell, does not call for the warriors to come and kill or capture Iohannes and whatever men he has brought with him.

“Run back to your army, General,” Will says, keeping his tone as cold as he can.

He ignores the satisfied glint in the man’s eyes as Iohannes turns back into the darkness of the secret way. He will not forget where it is, and if his army enters the valley, even lofty Ró will not be safe unless they can hold him off at both points of entry.

Will had denied the major betrayal but the one he has just committed is as dark and deadly. Sudden fear of discovery wakes in him, and Will quickly shuts the doors, barring them to be sure Iohannes cannot come back.

He struggles to lift the heavy bar in place and tries to understand how Iohannes got so far past their defenses. Perhaps he had come alone, by stealth.

Will does not believe a successful conquering of the force guarding the pass would have come with so little notice.

He does not let himself worry for Hannibal - though he closes his eyes as he returns to the long house. Will breathes deep and feels carefully along the vibrant thread of Hannibal’s fate, though it knots and diverges into an impossible tangle. It is whole and steady, and the knowledge relieves Will.

Something nags at him though - and his awareness falls for a split second on a strange sensation - a loose end that frays - and suddenly terminates.

“Will?” 

The voice jerks him back, and he finds he has gone past the house, nearly to the entrance of the village.

Avigayil stands watch at the top of the path, a solitary figure with a bow and spear. It was her voice that had roused him.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

Will shakes his head, suddenly aware he is still in his small clothes.

“Nowhere,” he says, though it confuses her. “I was only sleep walking.”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -kostr, an offer  
> -This chapter beta'd by Quedarius  
> (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), who's loyalty does not waver and is never in doubt.


	31. forða

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will watches the Imperials push against Ró’s defenses and frets on the dilemma, uncertain what he is to do about it, what the right decision even is.
> 
> They do not come with brute force again, but cunning. Iohannes is wise enough not to throw men uselessly against the narrow pass, but instead treats the mountain-side as a castle wall.
> 
> Or so Hannibal says. Will is not sure how to imagine a wall so tall as the mountain pass. It is outside the scope of his existence, but Hannibal claims to have seen them.

Will does not mention the breach of security - partially from guilt at his failure to act, partially because he had considered the offer. Some part of him perhaps is still considering it. Further complicating things, or perhaps only complicating them because it is a balm for his guilt - is the fact that Will is not sure if it was even reality.

Surely it was madness for Iohannes to come alone, so deep into enemy territory? Perhaps Will’s conflicts and uncertainties had conjured the scenario, with the last lingering traces of his cold.

That nothing comes of the incident is a reassurance to him, though perhaps it is yet too early to tell if the discovery was an effective one.

Will watches the Imperials push against Ró’s defenses and frets on the dilemma, uncertain what he is to do about it, what the right decision even is.

They do not come with brute force again, but cunning. Iohannes is wise enough not to throw men uselessly against the narrow pass, but instead treats the mountain-side as a castle wall.

Or so Hannibal says. Will is not sure how to imagine a wall so tall as the mountain pass. It is outside the scope of his existence, but Hannibal claims to have seen them.

So below, under the watchful and worried eyes of the Ardik, the Imperials begin to build ladders, towers, and strange devices; all from the sturdy, scrawny pines that grow on the mountainsides or lumber pulled up by sheer manpower from greater distances.

It would be fascinating, if it were not terrifying. Will watches at Hannibal’s side, as he might study a horde of industrious ants. He cannot quite feel the threat, when the individuals work so seamlessly. A thousand small parts moving and making something whole.

Hannibal’s nerves hold firm, even as huge weapons form below them.

“How will they get them up the rise?” Will asks, looking at the heavy, low-slung devices.

“They will not need to,” Hannibal warns. “The devices will throw their stones this far - further if they are adeptly built.” 

“Surely not,” Will looks, but he sees only grim truth in Hannibal’s expression.

“Wait and see,” Hannibal answers.

“How do we face them?” 

Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise, eyes dark. His features linger somewhere between serenity and intensity, strands of his hair pulled free over his lowered brow, masking the straight, even set of his mouth.

“We can pull back and give them the ridge - they will abandon their siege machines rather than fighting to bring them over, and they will be forced to hold here a very long time, if they try.

“It’s more likely,” Hannibal continues, thinking aloud, “that they intend to build others on this side.”

Will finds the immensity of the effort to be staggering.

“Why?” he asks. “Why not just move on to an easier target?”

“Because I challenged them,” Hannibal answers, with half a smile.

Will snorts.

Yet, all evidence below suggests Iohannes’ dedication to ignore all else but Hannibal. Perhaps he thought to make it quick, or perhaps he had the utmost faith that the Ardik would pose no threat. That they would wait, individual and stubborn, to be conquered one by one.

“We will risk a raid,” Hannibal decides, his tone low and thoughtful. “We can set them back once while they are bold enough to build them in our reach.”

He makes a decisive gesture, summoning Brunn and Ymir and asking them to gather men, horses. 

“It’s-” Will protests, seeing that Hannibal means to lead the raid. He does not get to finish his warning.

“Ride back to Ró,” Hannibal says, and it is not quite an order but borders on the verge of one, rubbing against Will’s pride the wrong way. 

He shakes his head, daring Hannibal to insist.

“I won’t be sent back to safety,” he protests.

Hannibal slides his gaze smoothly, heavy-lidded, over Will’s figure. The expression he wears is faintly displeased, and Will endures it, returning a look of obstinate displeasure to match.

“At least wait behind our lines,” Hannibal relents, after a moment. It is a poor compromise, but Will is untrained and unskilled with weapons. He supposes if he were to ride with the raid, he would only become a target.

He has to hold his horse as the others gather, measuring pitched arrows into their quivers, readying a party to ride down and into danger.

They designate Ymir as the torch bearer, to ride in the center of them and hold the flame aloft so the archers can light their shots without needing to struggle with flints. Ymir’s horse shows white, rolling eyes, and Will’s heart sinks when the party charges out from the defensive line and down the hill. 

The Imperials form up below, scrambling for their shields and dropping tools. It is an unexpected move on Hannibal’s part, but not an unwise one. Letting them finish would be akin to giving up his position atop the pass anyway.

The archers below ready themselves in an instant, taking in the intent of the party by the formation and apparent armaments. The other soldiers lift their shields, interlocking them to offer as much defense as they can around the wooden weapons.

Will watches the raiding party grow smaller with distance, his hands white on the reins. The line of archers shifts around him, readying themselves in case of a retaliatory strike or some failure or triumph that would call them down the slope.

It is a small party.

Perhaps twenty five men.

But they go awake and aware with flaming torch aloft on an enemy that does not, this time, sleep.

Hannibal lights his arrow at a gallop, the reins loose against his horse’s neck, and Will can see that the animal does not know him as well as Kanin, does not listen as quickly to the commands issued through seat and knees and balance.

He aims high, looses the arrow in a flaming rush, a man-made comet sailing first up then arcing down. Two others follow, then three. They sink home in the machines but the wood is slow to catch, still fresh and new, green hewn and flexible.

The Imperials scramble but another round of arrows fall, and another, and then the raiding party is forced to round back on itself by a return volley. 

The Imperial archers advance when the raiders turn their horses, taking advantage of how the animals slow on the steep slope to fire at their unprotected backs.

Will holds his breath.

It is almost too much to take in, but the riders circle carefully on the narrow path, the horses slipping and faltering as they move around Ymir’s still figure to light another round of arrows. Below, the Imperials hold their shields up in a line behind the archers protecting those who scramble to extinguish the small fires set by the Ardik arrows.

He can hear Hannibal’s voice lifted to give orders, but not pick his figure from the milling riders.

A lone arrow flies forth from the Imperials, striking the path some twenty feet below the party. A gauge for range.

Then the Ardik turn again, a tight slow circle revolving around the torch bearer, and ride again into the storm. 

This time, Will hears horses screaming when the Imperials let loose, a rain of red and gold feathered arrows falling heavy on the party. Two horses stumble from the path and crash away, flailing limbs and dragging riders over the edge of the path and down the rocky slopes for some distance.

Two others fall flat and lay still, and men struggle to free themselves from beneath before more arrows fall.

But the motion of the charge has started and it rolls on, gaining momentum and focus, narrowing and flying on shining, sure hooves down and down, further than they had dared the first time.

Will can see Hannibal at last in the front, bow raised and shoulders set, his braid bouncing between them as he aims, past the machines themselves this time. Will cannot identify what he is shooting for before Hannibal lets loose the arrow. Instead, Will tracks it to its destination as the others behind Hannibal pepper the weapons again, some arrows taking the men trying to extinguish fires or landing amongst the enemy archers to scatter them and foul their shots.

Hannibal’s arrow flies further, striking and shattering a large clay pot from which a viscous black material oozes. The flames catch there quickly, and then spark to leaping, living things, consuming the pot and others around it quickly, raising screams of alarm amongst the Imperials.

Then, the party is turning again, retreating and vulnerable up the slope.

One horse falls, another tripping animals behind it and sending them crashing together. For one heart-stopping moment, Will thinks the entire group will fall. Every horse he can see is fighting for footing.

Hannibal is at the rear.

But they recover, some riders reaching down to lift fallen comrades, hoisting them up at speed and riding on, back for the safety of their defensive line.

After that, the men see nothing but the summit they race for, and Will breathes again when they come past the distance marker arrow, still stuck fast in the path.

Will could not say what called his eye to a motion behind them, where a dead horse lay to one side of the path, shot with arrows and legs splayed, trapped against a jut of rock. Some small motion, feeble. 

But his eyes fix, and then recognize. A light colored horse, pale and still. Her four feet are white. Will knows the animal as Brunn’s, knows he had seen the rider fall with her. 

She stirs again and it isn’t her motion, but the man trapped beneath her.

Will drives his heels into his horse’s sides and the animal lurches forward with a surprised squeal. Will keeps kicking it until the horse arrows through the party of riders coming up the rise.  
“Will!” Hannibal’s voice is startled and he makes a grab for Will’s reins when the other passes, so Will kicks the horse again and it shies away, on the verge of control and panic.

It takes all his strength on the reins to stop the horse, and he swings down before it has ceased moving fully, using the bulk of the animal as a shield.

“Will!” Hannibal shouts, warning. 

An arrow lands in the dirt, very near. Will ignores it, cutting the straps on the dead horses’ saddle, slicing the reins from the bridle with his tiny knife and tying them with haste around her still, stiffening forelegs.

Now, he can hear Ymir’s voice but not the words, and the sounds of more arrows around him, cutting the air with their soft snake sounds. His horse makes nervous, jerking motions, eyes rolled back to show wide, white crescents.

The reins barely reach to the high pommel of the saddle, but Will ties them there as best he can and then looses his hold on the animal, driving it with a slap until it bolts, dragging Brunn’s dead horse a few feet - not enough.

“Get, get, get,” Will’s voice is saying, sharp, encouraging - but he isn’t certain at all of what he’s doing. There is simply a conviction in him, and it will not let go.

His horse shies and mills, pulling, struggling and stumbling. It dislodges the dead animal only in maddening increments.

An arrow slides past him, opening his arm below the shoulder with a bright sting of pain, but it does not lodge. Will feels the battle-fever then, he thinks, and he wedges himself against the dead horse with his back to her side and _pushes_ , shoving against the rock solid weight until it gives at last.

Beneath, Brunn moves sluggish and stunned, his face a bloody mess but he seems otherwise whole , _alive_ , and Will cannot - will not - give up now.

Suddenly the horse’s body is tumbling free, and Will barely thinks to cut the tether before the dead weight drags his own animal down over the cliff into the dead emptiness beyond.

His vision is white at the edges, and he fights the hands that pull him up, fights those that try to take Brunn from him until he realizes he is being lifted onto a horse, that Ymir has Brunn over his own saddle and Hannibal’s voice is soft behind his ear, Hannibal’s teeth are sharp on the nape of his neck to bring Will back to himself.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -forða, meaning 'save'.  
> -beta'd by Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), whose quick work is why these chapters are coming so quickly for you now!


	32. kjósa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weeks that follow drag out and rush together in time, a tangle of victories and horrors in Will’s mind.
> 
> The Imperials build their machines further back the second time, and bring them forward as living animals spitting flaming pitch and boulders, flinging them impossible distances until no force on earth could keep the guard hills, and Hannibal withdraws to avoid paying in too much blood. 
> 
> Instead, he buys time in the valley, harrying and harassing the Imperium as they move into it, but inevitably the Ardik are forced to recede. Will has seen hunted wolves driven thus; heads low, hackles raised, teeth bared and snapping but forced back. Ever further, until they were at the mouth of their very den.

The weeks that follow drag out and rush together in time, a tangle of victories and horrors in Will’s mind.

The Imperials build their machines further back the second time, and bring them forward as living animals spitting flaming pitch and boulders, flinging them impossible distances until no force on earth could keep the guard hills, and Hannibal withdraws to avoid paying in too much blood. 

Instead, he buys time in the valley, harrying and harassing the Imperium as they move into it, but inevitably the Ardik are forced to recede. Will has seen hunted wolves driven thus; heads low, hackles raised, teeth bared and snapping but forced back. Ever further, until they were at the mouth of their very den.

True to Hannibal’s prediction, they had abandoned their hard-built siege machines on the other side of the pass, but Will thinks they will soon either move them over or build new ones.

He has discovered the meaning of the falling stars in his dreams. Flaming balls of pitch, flung high by the working arms of the machines. They could crush fifty men flat, and burn as many when the flames spattered and flew apart. 

The army that at last retreats into Ró, sealing the path behind them to endure siege is tired and ragged. Perhaps they still have faith, but Will is not certain if they still have hope.

Hannibal too, is exhausted. Will has not seen him sleep - has not slept much himself, and he knows the feeling of thinness must encompass both of them.

Hannibal had not tried to forbid Will from his side since his daring in rescuing Brunn.

They have barely sealed the city, dropping three heavy, spiked log barriers into place and fortified with earth works and archers, when Iohannes rides forth with disregard for the danger, riding Kanin to the very first barrier.

He circles once, considering, and then grins broadly up at Hannibal, showing the gap in his teeth.

Hannibal’s sword appears in Iohannes’ hand, and the General drive the point into the ground to leave it standing straight up before the fortification. 

“I’m answering your challenge!” He shouts up. Hannibal shifts his seat, angry.

“So when you get tired of being a mouse,” Iohannes continues, walking Kanin back and forth so as not to present too tempting a target. “Come down and fight like a wolf!”

The taunt is clear. Iohannes has them trapped - as was inevitable when Hannibal had lured him here. For certain, they had and held the General’s attention.

If Britta was coming, Hannibal had kept his promise. If Britta _was_ coming, all they had to do was withstand the siege. If she wasn’t, all Iohannes had to do was wait - he need not lose one more man.

They would starve slowly in Ró, unable to hunt or gather and reliant on stores - Hannibal had built them up as best as possible, but it would not last forever.

Will has to reach out, steadying Hannibal with a hand at his wrist before anger and restlessness can make him rash.

“We need only hold,” Will reminds, and Hannibal sighs, gaze sliding over Will’s bandaged arm. 

“I would rather finally kill him,” Hannibal admits, but Will can see his anger fading and a quiet determination to withstand taking its place.

“I’ll set patrols,” Hannibal continues, looking out over the arrayed Imperials in the valley below.

“Go and get a fire going?” Hannibal requests, and Will tolerates his not-so-subtle attempt to get Will to rest more and nurse his injury.

The cut was deep but had not taken foul. It was healing clean, though it would leave a scar. Will’s first that he had _earned _, as Hannibal had, and Will is almost proud of it.__

__“You need sleep as well,” Will answers, but he turns his mount to see to it. The horse has grown more nervous since Will had forced it into danger, and he is careful to treat the animal gently, hoping that he can mend the damage._ _

__“I will come,” Hannibal promises, calling after._ _

__The streets are crowded with all the army pulled into the walls, for defense and protection. Where they could, they had pitched tents, made camps at the back of the town in the small fields and garden spaces. Horses had been turned out or put into shared stalls, and warriors live in stables instead. Houses are shared and families take back their sons and adopt their friends as their own._ _

__Will wonders how long these extended families will stand, when food grows scarce. He hopes they do not ever have to find out._ _

__He swings down from his horse three houses down from his shared longhouse - it is one of the few not accommodating extra bodies, only because it operated as center of communications and planning._ _

__Instead of returning directly, Will raps softly on the door in front of him, looping his reins around the hitching post._ _

__Ymir answers looking tired. His eyes brighten to see Will and he claps Will’s shoulders between his hands as if he had too many words to say and they would not encompass enough, even could they all be said._ _

__“How is he?” Will asks, accepting and returning Ymir’s grateful embrace._ _

__“Cranky,” Ymir answers in an undertone, a very gentle amusement in his voice._ _

__“Not deaf!” The voice from further in is loud enough to give Will a feeling of relief._ _

__Brunn is still bed-ridden, but more awake and aware than Will’s previous visits. The fall - or the horse landing on him - had broken one of his legs and left him with scrapes and cuts. But the break was clean and the cuts shallow. By some intervention of the gods, the horse had not crushed him._ _

__The Imperial arrow that had struck him had taken one of his eyes - the right, the hole left now hidden beneath a swath of bandages that is perhaps just slightly excessive. Ymir’s work, as if he could wrap all of his worry and care against Brunn’s skin._ _

__None of it would render Brunn whole again, but Will thinks perhaps it has made a difference in his recovery._ _

__“Well,” Will agrees, approaching Brunn’s bedside and looking him over - the bruises have faded and the blood has been carefully cleaned from his skin, the cuts are knitting. The pale, haunted look of one coming to terms with so grave a wound has faded. “Do you deny the accusation?”_ _

__Brunn rolls his halved gaze toward Ymir, and Will sees the fondness even in his faint, exasperated smile._ _

__“I hardly get any peace. Who wouldn’t be, stuck here, knowing nothing?” Brunn shifts himself against the pile of pillows, furs, and blankets, sitting up higher. He fusses briefly with the bandages over his eye, ignoring Ymir’s dirty look._ _

__Will thinks that when he has healed, an eyepatch will suit his features._ _

__“You aren’t so far from the action anymore,” Will admits. “We are besieged.”_ _

__Silence answers him, the same uncertainty that he felt - a tentative path between the reality of what enduring siege would mean. Though it was what they had worked toward, it was still daunting, with no word from Britta._ _

__“Our defenses will hold and we have time,” Will says, trying to reassure them. “Iohannes will not risk more losses when he believes that all he will have to do is wait.”_ _

__“Or so he thinks,” Ymir agrees, volunteering his optimism. Will nods and rises to go, satisfied with Brunn’s progress toward healing and having delivered the news as intended._ _

__They have not killed each other from annoyance, Will thinks, even under such circumstances of duress and proximity. Will finds a warm reassurance in that, somehow. In the solidarity of it._ _

__“Be patient, Brunn,” Will says, by way of goodbye. “There will be Imperials left when your leg has mended.”_ _

__He wishes the thought was as comforting and confident as the words._ _

__At home, Hannibal is waiting, the fire built and banked, and his eyes distant until Will enters._ _

__Light and awareness wakes slowly in their depths, a fascinating spark that catches and flares up._ _

__“I’m sorry about the fire,” Will says, though the nights are warm enough now as to need none - and they shared a bed when they slept in one, anyway._ _

__“How are they?” Hannibal asks._ _

__“As well as to be expected,” Will answers, stripping off his clothes - they smell of horse and sweat and his skin feels dusty and coarse. “Brunn will not make much of an archer.”_ _

__Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise, as Will scrubs himself with the dirty water in the basin, loath to waste any._ _

__When he is done, Will turns to find Hannibal just behind him, and leans back into his arms when Hannibal reaches for him. There is something dangerous and vulnerable that lives in these quiet moments, a beast of certainty that moves arch-backed beneath the skin of the world. Will wants to reach out to the future, but at the same time he is afraid to. Afraid that all the possibilities he might see will - and _can_ \- have only one end._ _

__He closes his eyes and his dreams rush up against his eyelids, with a sudden _understanding_. Whether or not he had only dreamed of Iohannes, all the dreams before could mean only one thing._ _

__At this moment, there is a fork. A _choice_ in Will’s path. Somehow, he knows that no matter what the decision, the world will go on and perhaps he with it - if he makes the right choice. _ _

__Hannibal’s fingertips are calloused but soft against Will’s belly. His mouth is gentle, too, but warm and somehow desperate at the back of Will’s neck. Will wants nothing more than to surrender to the impetus this desperation and frustration has created in both of them. He wants to let this crux pass him by without having to act at all._ _

__But the dark doorway hovers in his mind’s eye, vast and bleeding darkness, and from it, streaming breaths from the black creature standing just within. Imminent._ _

__“They will come up from the caves,” Will says. Hannibal goes still, mouth open against the skin of Will’s shoulder._ _

__“It is our only escape from the siege,” he says after a long moment. He knows the truth in Will’s words, but also does not want to trap them all here with no recourse._ _

__“They cannot know about it,” Hannibal continues, arguing as much against himself as anything Will has suggested._ _

__“ _Hannibal,_ ” Will says, to quiet him, covering Hannibal’s hands with his own. “They will come up from the caves. Very soon now.”_ _

__Will feels Hannibal draw a deep breath against his back. He is measuring his options in these moments of quiet and finding he does not like them._ _

__“Then I will seal them,” he says, resigning himself. “Drop the ceiling.”_ _

__It is a desperate decision, the choice of a slow death under siege with no hope of retreat._ _

__Will turns in Hannibal’s arms and finds his eyes are closed when he eases up onto his toes and kisses the man, as much reassurance as despair._ _

__-_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -kjósa, to choose, to decide  
> -We are rounding down toward the end very quickly here folks! I want to thank you all for sticking it through, and I'll see you again tomorrow with the next part if all goes well!  
> -Beta'd by Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), who is most certainly a wolf and not a mouse!


	33. fimm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What follows is not as soft nor as sweet as the first time they had shared this between them. Will sees, finally, when Hannibal presses him down to the bed that the hunger in Hannibal’s eyes is to the fore this time, and will not be kept in check.

What follows is not as soft nor as sweet as the first time they had shared this between them. Will sees, finally, when Hannibal presses him down to the bed that the hunger in Hannibal’s eyes is to the fore this time, and will not be kept in check.

He welcomes it, the sting of Hannibal’s teeth that answers Will’s clawing fingers against Hannibal’s scalp. The heat forms low, at the base of Will’s spine and crawls out, touching him at his extremities and leaving him achingly hard, even before Hannibal closes a rough hand on Will through his pants.

Will rushes Hannibal, then, pushes him, sinking his teeth into Hannibal’s shoulder when he tries to slow down and gather himself.

This time, Hannibal works him open with his mouth and tongue in addition to his fingers, and Will lets his mind drop down into the sensations - rough furs moving against his cheek, the pressure of his knees against the bed as he arches himself up. The rest is heat and tension, sparks of pleasure until Will has to let go of his holds on the blankets and get his hands on himself to ease some of the pressure.

Hannibal does not slow him or beg his patience this time, applying the slick in rough, hurried motions.

This time, it stings Will to take him, but he welcomes it, and hurries his strokes in distraction until it has passed beyond pain, transcended to the half-step between when he must wrench release from himself, his strokes almost a punishment against his own cock. 

He becomes aware of the sounds crawling out of him, feral and wild, only when he realizes Hannibal is answering them with soothing, shushing noises into the skin between Will’s shoulder blades. By then it doesn’t matter, Will is tipping past the edge into the heavy whiting-out of his senses, clawing at the bedding below him until orgasm passes, as if he had needed to fight his way past it, drag himself through it as a battlefield.

Hannibal hooks an arm beneath Will’s hips to lock them together as he cums, his grip like a steel band across Will’s belly, and Will leans into it, catching his breath only in fits and starts. 

Will feels better, tension and thoughts wrenched from him for a few moments. They settle together, and Will pulls Hannibal against him, easing their mouths together. 

Too, he feels better to have committed to his choice. As sweet as Iohannes’ song of revenge might have sounded, it was not the melody Will wanted. It was no kindness, no real freedom.

Perhaps that was not to be found anywhere, but certainly not in Imperium - the men in the army seemed as much machine as their constructs.

Will eases his fingers through Hannibal’s hair, smoothing stray strands back into place.

“If Britta has not come in five days,” Hannibal says, and Will covers his mouth.

“Don’t,” Will says, stilling his words so that Hannibal allows himself a few more moments of peace. “Our future is sleep.”

Hannibal’s lips arch against Will’s fingertips, old advice returned to him in his own words. Will feels the smile ease only as they both surrender to sleep.

Will does not dream but drifts too deep - or perhaps fate is so in flux there is no certainty so large it looms up to haunt him, unsought. 

He does not - cannot - forget Hannibal’s ultimatum, though Hannibal does not finish the sentiment or mention it again.

_In five days..._

Below the barricades, at the base of the Plateau that holds Ró aloft, Hannibal’s sword stands plunged into the earth. Hannibal looks at it from above, standing behind the barricades, as if he is tied to it and the string is drawing tighter at his neck.

True to his word, he seals the cave - and closes the ceiling down atop a raiding Imperial party, crushing them dead and leaving all but what heads he can claim to rot there in the dark.

The image haunts Will, as the shadows cast by the claimed heads - a visible victory and answering taunt - hung up on either side of the barricades. They are men, then, and not Imperials, so denuded of their disguises as parts of something much greater. 

The Ardik are savage; they claim trophies and flaunt their victories, but always before he has known them to be respectful of their dead.

Such disregard for these enemies expresses a contempt that Will hopes they can afford.

Iohannes only waits, when his first plan - to claim the city through the secret entrance - fails. He does not need to hurl his men against the fortifications. Instead, they begin to build again. Where Hannibal and his men can clearly see, but beyond his reach to strike.

Ró must wait and watch the Imperials assemble their doom slowly, at their leisure, and do so in the knowledge that they cannot run.

For the first time, Will sees Hannibal falter, his eyes watching but uncertain what to do in the face of the threat.

Will sits at his side, and realizes that while they have waited, Spring has become the earliest part of summer. The warmth of the days spreading and lasting long into the shortening nights. 

He wonders how much of it they will see.

On the fourth night the Imperials complete the first machine, and so calibrated and precise is their work that they use it to deliver a boulder just without the final fortification on the entryway path - sending guards scrambling in terror. 

Satisfied the point has been made, they fire no more that night, leaving the Ardik to sit in their nest and worry about what must come in the morning. 

Hannibal stays still and quiet, and his eyes follow the movements of Iohannes below, riding confident atop his stolen mount.

“What will we do?” Will asks, when he cannot bear to wait in silence anymore. To see Hannibal so elevated and isolated makes him feel alone. They are neither of them alone.

Not yet.

“I know what to do,” Hannibal confesses. “The hand that has guided me is as heavy in me as a command.”

He draws a deep breath, turning his dark eyes toward Will. 

“I do not want to do it,” he admits, and Will tries not to let that concept hit him as one of the heavy stones might, a falling star of flaming rock. 

“What will happen if you don’t?” Will asks, shifting his seat and making a sign of deference to the gods - even as he speaks of defying them.

“I don’t know,” Hannibal says. Then after a pause, “We won’t find out.”

There is nothing to say, then, nothing Will dares to ask. For a moment more, for two - or for an hour, perhaps, Will finds he cannot tell, they sit still. The sun creeps behind the guard hills and the light weakens and reddens as night comes on. 

For that time, Will can almost feel those iron fingers curling and closing on his own chest. For just an instant, he is no longer the spectator, but the actor on Fate’s stage.

Then Hannibal is gone from his side, and Will scrambles to follow him.

The change seems to take the whole of Ró - from potential to kinetic, and the warriors all make ready for combat.

Will remembers the war paint Bávǫrr had given him, finds it tucked away beneath the wolf-eared cloak and miraculously unruined by seawater.

He does not remember her patterns so he makes up his own, spots and stripes like an animal. 

Hannibal lets Will paint him, too, and run streaks of red in his hair - to trick the battle spirits into believing he had already bled to pay them.

The warriors that gather at the front pass are a ferocity of wild color and spiked hair, they and their horses painted in lime wash and red mud.

They were ready to meet their gods, if need be. Tired of being mice and ready to be wolves. 

When Hannibal appears to lead them, they howl as wolves might, and Will feels the sound to his very core, finds his own voice raising to join until Hannibal’s eyes settle on him and his smile shows bright teeth and faint surprise.

Will supposes he does not seem the type to join such a clamor, not the type to settle amongst men who had been his captors, not to fight by their sides or invest himself in their fates.

But this fate was his, and he had chosen it. Why shouldn’t he howl along?

In response, bonfires spring up in the fields below, bringing circles of light to life in the darkness.

“First,” Hannibal calls out to his men, “I will answer the challenge. Then, we will show them what they have asked for.”

His words are met with a roar of approval, a clattering of swords against small shields or a rattling of them in their sheaths, the nervous whickering of horses. Hannibal turns his horse, kicking it into a gallop to head down the path. He leaps the fortifications, and Will must follow at a slower pace, picking his way around them in the narrow spaces between. 

Below, in the nearest circle of firelight, General Iohannes appears. He is striped by the tall, armed shadow of Hannibal’s sword, standing between him and the fire itself.

In his hands is a bow, not a sword, and Hannibal is so focused on guiding his mount over the obstacles that he either does not see or cannot react.

Will shouts, but he is too far behind for clarity, too far to change the course of either Hannibal or the arrow.

It is the sudden collapse of Kanin beneath Iohannes that destroys his aim. A black fletched shaft has sprung from the horse’s side, and Will and Hannibal both shout to see it.

The loss is a sharp ache in Will, and at the bottom of the path Hannibal nearly throws himself from the horse he rides to the side of his more loyal mount. 

Kanin stirs weakly. He had fallen without so much as a whimper, none of the haunting screams horses could make and that Will knew well by now.

Iohannes stumbles heavily to his feet some small distance away, dizzied by the sudden fall. The bow is snapped in his hands, and he casts it aside and draws his sword.

Hannibal’s hands are soft over Kanin’s muzzle, gentle over the horse’s ears, and he risks vulnerability to lean down and press his forehead to Kanin’s broad, flat cheek.

When he rises, he is manifest fate, claiming his sword from the dirt.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -fimm, meaning five  
> -A short break after this one to allow for some awesome stuff coming from some other authors tomorrow. Lag will resume thursday and then drive to the finish over the weekend.  
> -Beta'd by Quedarius, who has been amazing throughout the whole last half of the process of this fic, and without whom it would not be as strong. Seriously, send love and cookies.


	34. rjóðr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anger fuels them both and they do not circle or taunt now, instead leaping for each other as wild animals would, bronze bared as teeth might be. Hannibal’s grimace is nightmarish, with his face painted and hair streaked red.

Anger fuels them both and they do not circle or taunt now, instead leaping for each other as wild animals would, bronze bared as teeth might be. Hannibal’s grimace is nightmarish, with his face painted and hair streaked red. 

Iohannes is a match. Heavier than Hannibal and no poor fighter, he knows how to lever his weight against a man for effect. Their swords ring together and then they are leaning past the reach of the weapons to claw and grab and shove at each other. 

Will crashes carelessly through the forming circle of Imperials; though they do not try to interfere, he does not want to be cut off from Hannibal, closed outside the ring and unable to help if he can.

Will does not know what Hannibal is listening to - his anger and loss, of men, of freedom and homeland and way of life, if all of this fails, or the guiding hand inside him. It must be saying, _now, now, now_. Will does not know which would better serve Hannibal.

Iohannes shoves Hannibal back and he stumbles, losing ground that the general claims, pushing him further off balance. Iohannes tries to corner him against the unrelenting wall of soldiers behind him.

Hannibal slips the trap, parrying Iohannes’ blade aside.

Will keeps his mount moving, circling the fight to keep anyone from getting the idea of trying to catch or hold him - Hannibal had enough to worry about.

It’s Hannibal that claims first blood, a cut above Iohannes’ gorget that leaves him bleeding from a cut high on his neck. Though the wound is not serious, it must sting.

Will’s triumphant yelp is drowned beneath the victorious howls from above, where Ró’s warriors watch, just as rapt as the Imperial soldiers. 

Iohannes recovers quickly, and triumph fades back to terse silence as the two cross swords again.

The combatants close again, shoving, and then grappling - a dangerous move on Hannibal’s part. For a moment, Will thinks his momentum driven through his shoulder and into Iohannes’ breastplate will carry Iohannes over, but instead the man hooks his forearms around Hannibal’s middle, yanking him off balance and then throwing him hard over his shoulder. Hannibal hits the dirt hard enough that _Will_ can almost feel it.

He swings down from his horse without thinking, loosing the animal uncaringly. He does not know what he intends, indeed, Will is unarmed save for his loaned knife.

But something in the determination of his motion catches Iohannes’ attention as he lifts his sword, drawing the General’s gaze up from Hannibal’s prone form.

He smiles, gap-toothed, and in the low light the expression puts Will in mind of a serpent thinking to strike, fangs folded back and nearly - _nearly_ out of sight.

“Have you made up your mind at last?” Iohannes says, perhaps misreading Will’s expression or perhaps unable to see it with the fire behind Will’s back.

“Do you perceive the victory now, _Seer_? As you saw it in your dreams?” Iohannes kicks Hannibal’s sword out of reach, keeping the point of his own aimed deftly for the warlord’s neck.

“Will you join me now?”

Will’s eyes are on Hannibal when the meaning of the words sink in, sliding beneath skin and into awareness like a cruel needle into a beating heart.

When he turns to see if it is true, Iohannes lunges - but the aim is fouled by Hannibal’s movement - the blade pierces high, deflecting off of Hannibal’s collarbone and into his shoulder instead of his heart or chest or belly.

Will surges forward, even as Hannibal continues his roll, wrenching the sword both out of his body and from Iohannes’ hands. 

“I never saw you win,” Will yells, dragging Iohannes’ attention away while Hannibal regains his feet, one hand clutched over his chest in a diagonal. Will reaches down to help Hannibal up, but he does not dare look at the severity of the wound, nor what emotions must be in his eyes. He keeps his eyes instead on Iohannes.

“I never saw you win,” Will repeats. “All of your confidence is false, and the certainty you think is so firm beneath your feet is nothing but sand, General. Fate isn’t behind you.”

Hannibal’s hand eases against the small of Will’s back, and then he is on his feet at Will’s side.

Will does not look. He does not know what Hannibal will believe, which truth will prove itself to matter, and he cannot stand to see if Hannibal has lost faith in him. 

Iohannes’ grin turns hard and fierce on his features, a grimace that does not lack for determination.

“You should have taken my offer,” he says.

It is then Will sees the knife in Iohannes’ hands, and he somehow knows that the target will be Hannibal and not him. That Iohannes _covets_ Will’s gift, that like the warlords he so disdained, Iohannes would seize it by force if he found any way to do so.

There is a certain ease that follows Will’s panic when he sees the way to prevent his own capture, to save Hannibal’s life. He can feel his own knife slip free of his belt when Hannibal seizes it, and then he moves, sudden. He has never had so great a moment of clarity as he does placing himself in the path of Iohannes’ blade.

It takes him low in the belly, and Will grabs for it, feeling the point jag over his hipbone and into softer, more vulnerable flesh. Pain seems to cut all of his tendons, trying to drop him to the ground even as the knife works deeper and holds him up, as if pinned. He does not know if he screams, but there is an imminent danger at his back in Hannibal’s silence and fury.

Will wraps his hands around Iohannes’ wrists and refuses to let go, locking his fingers with the strength of the furies themselves, holding tight and showing his teeth even when pain turns the edges of his vision white. 

He can hear the howling Ardik wolves behind him, descending, and he feels the blood paint his chest and face in hot spatters when Hannibal opens Iohannes’ throat, but the whole of his vision is spinning and pain finally loosens his muscles and turns his own blood to water.

Will loses moments, then, his world receding from him in sight and sound. He does not feel himself hit the ground, does not know how long he lays, hands clenched against his own belly around the knife Iohannes’ dying fingers had released.

His vision dims and narrows, turning men to shadows, and in the shadows he sees the stag, raising it’s head and swinging its crown of thorns and antlers to ward off the wolves that drive it back, many gathered together against the one, numbers and predators against pride and singularity.

For a time, he drifts, aware of no sounds but of proximities at times, of motion around him and the pounding surf of his own pulse.

His mind finds memories that had submerged, pulled up by the ocean-sounds of his own pulse in his ears. He remembers drifting in the freezing ocean, with Hannibal’s warmth at his back, his strong arms around Will’s middle, and the sting of salt water in his eyes, the taste on his tongue.

His eyes sting now, too, of salt and water. It is not the ocean.

He floats, as he did in his memories, his mind lost in the comforts of his own thoughts, pulled back into the past he had forgotten.

In his memories the cold fades and it leaves only the weightless sensation of being buoyant, borne up by the heavy water and his contact with Hannibal.

It is a quiet sensation, this drifting peace.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- rjóðr, red  
> -beta'd by the valiant Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), who was always there in time under siege.


	35. enda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iohannes lays where he had fallen, arms spread wide and neck split and gaping to white bone. Too, his breastplate has been cut away at the straps, cast aside. His chest is open, flesh pulled back from his ribs.

Consciousness returns with agony, and Will chokes in cool air that tastes of smoke and blood. It hurts to his very bones, and he stills himself with a groan, opening his eyes to the ruin around him.

Bodies lay sprawled - dead or moving feebly. He supposes he is one of the latter, as he takes stock of himself. His fingers touch the blade of the knife gingerly, and agony washes fire through his nerves when he finds it still sunk deep. Perhaps that is why he still lives - he does not feel that much blood against his fingers.

He can hear fighting and the sun has started to come up, but all he sees are the corpses of men and animals near him. Iohannes lays where he had fallen, arms spread wide and neck split and gaping to white bone. Too, his breastplate has been cut away at the straps, cast aside. His chest is open, flesh pulled back from his ribs. Will looks away. 

He has been left behind with the dead, perhaps thought to be among them. 

That he does not see Hannibal’s body anywhere is a comfort - Will gives himself permission to believe it is because Hannibal is still leading his men, still holding his reclaimed sword and fighting.

“Will?” The voice is familiar, but his foggy mind does not spark recognition.

When he turns his head, Fredrik is sitting over him, hands raised as if he knows he needs to take action, but not where to start.

Will cannot help his smile, cannot help reaching for him - to ascertain that he’s real. His fingers close on Fredrik’s and find them a real, solid relief. Will gives his hand a feeble jog, though he feels the lack in his own strength. 

“Are you alright?” Fredrik asks, eyes still on the knife protruding from Will’s belly.

Will does not have a whole answer. Instead he offers, “I’m alive, for now. As are you.”

It had not been entirely a certainty the last time they had seen each other.

“Did you doubt?” Fredrik asks, with some wry acidity.

“Not that you would survive your injuries,” Will says. “Just your caretakers.”

Fredrik laughs, a quiet sound that is half disbelief.

“Has Britta come?” Will asks, suddenly needing to know - to believe that they are saved.

“Yes,” Fredrik says, reassuring but with maddeningly little detail. “Hannibal will kill me if I don’t get you out of here. I’ll explain the rest on the way.”

Will does not see how Fredrik expects to move him; he is not much taller than Will, nor that much stronger.

Instead, Fredrik whistles a sharp signal, and soon has familiar assistance - Freda, with her massive axe in one hand and dripping red gore to shame any warrior Will has known, and Bávǫrr, in her strange helmet.

“Oh - hey, look at this little warrior,” Bávǫrr assesses affectionately - of his war paint or overall condition, Will isn’t sure. “That’s not a goodnight kiss now is it?”

“Standing around won’t make it any sweeter,” Freda agrees, leaning on her axe and cocking her hip.

“Help me lift him,” Fredrik’s tone tries to demand obedience, and Freda clucks her tongue once, scoldingly.

“I’ll help,” she allows. “But you have to say please.”

“Please,” Fredrik answers, flatly.

Bávǫrr does not play so difficult a game, instead leaning down to hook her hands under Will’s armpits and beginning to lift him.

“Hold the knife still,”she tells Will, and he reaches for it though his fingers feel clumsy.

“Freda,” Fredrik is saying, “Please.”

He sees the extreme satisfaction on Freda’s face when she bends to hoist Will up, and a mirroring - fondness, he thinks with surprise - on Fredrik.

As they lift him, it is as if the knife sinks deeper, pulled toward the earth as if it were still trying to fall there, through Will’s body. It pins and paralyzes him, save for the agonized breath he draws, fingers curled around the dagger’s hilt to keep it as still as possible. He can hear the uneven mess of his own breathing, though he tries to keep it calm and still the sounds that come with it are as sharp and short as the blade itself, and seem to come from as deep in him. 

The trip is not one Will cares to remember.

The words, however, penetrate the fog of pain and nausea and exhaustion. 

“Britta would not relent until she had won every tribe over,” Fredrik says, as Will crushes his fingers with his free hand to divert the pain. “I’m not sure she expected to find you still resisting-”

“She came, didn’t she?” Freda argues, tone and gaze sharp.

“But we did come, and Ró was still standing,” Fredrik allows.

No one challenges them as they rush up the pathway into Ró - either it is fully clear how urgent it is, or the fighting has gone elsewhere.

“Lady Britta found those fine fancy rock throwers out there,” Bávǫrr says, eyes alight. “Hardly guarded.”

“Well if the Imperium didn’t _need_ them,” Freda agrees, mischief in her tone.

“So Imperium finds itself stuck down here, and no friends on any side,” Bávǫrr finishes.

Will is pleased to hear it, though he cannot totally comprehend how much violence unfolds - how many countless Imperial bodies would that unimaginable force leave, when it was crushed between two enemies with little chance of escape?

Will hopes that Hannibal finds pity in himself for his old captors.

They bear him up through the center of town like a fallen hero, as if he had done more to turn the tide of battle.

“Where’s Hannibal?” Will asks then, turning his gaze toward Fredrik in a sudden desperation. 

“At the head of his army,” Fredrik tells him. “Being certain Britta does not claim all the glory - or find herself in any tight spots.” 

Will knows that he will be seen to, that his fate - either a fork or the end of it - must come upon him very soon. He wishes Hannibal were with him, certain that if his fate was about to fail, only Lagbrotna could change it.

“You’ll see him again,” Bávǫrr assures him. “Let Móðir see to you, now.”

He realizes they have come all the way to the field around the door, now cleared of all but the wounded.

‘Móðir’ turns her sour look on Will, the same as she had looked at him lingering outside her tent and waiting for her verdict on Fredrik, then she looks at the knife jutting from his fingers and her disapproval only grows. Wills tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that she had healed Fredrik.

It is only a very small comfort.

“This one inside,” she orders, before his bearers can abandon him where he lays.

“Where-?” Freda begins to ask.

“Hannibal’s longhouse,” Fredrik instructs.

“Will you come soon?” Will asks, and for just an instant, the weathered old healer’s face softens. She nods, and waves them away. 

Will realizes what he has known - her intervention will only facilitate the will of the Gods. It is a strange notion, a resignation.

They settle him down in his own bed, and the exhaustion catches him. Will sleeps for a time, regardless of the pain.

When his eyes open again he is alone with Móðir, stripped to his waist, and he knows time has passed.

The whimper comes out of him before the pain fully realizes, but then it is whole and real and deeper in him than anything he’s felt, gone nearly all the way through him.

Móðir swats his hands away from her work and pins him flat, taking no pity when he asks to see Hannibal - when he begs because he is certain that he is dying.

He does not.

“You are very lucky,” the healer tells him, scowling down at his sweating form when she is done with the wound. “It missed everything inside.”

Will is sure, at a later point, that he will feel luckier. Now, all he feels is sharp pain if he is not careful when he breathes.

“Get no foolish ideas of rejoining the battle,” she warns, packing dried aloe leaves over the wound, and then bandaging it.

“I would consider moving from bed a foolish idea,” Will answers, hissing in pain. 

“Then you are wiser than Lagbrotna,” she tells Will, and leaves him with a thick opium paste to consume for the pain.

Will takes it, though it is bitter, having no use for stubbornness. He is grateful when it eases him nearly to sleep. His dreams reach out half-waking and a dozen scenes from battle play out in his awareness. 

Hannibal, his injured arm bound up, nevertheless wielding his sword and leading warriors.

Britta, commanding her captured machines against the men who had built them. 

And at last the Imperials breaking back over the cliff as they are driven, even in their much diminished mass, into retreat. A lone standard of the black stag remains, crumpled and bloodied on the ground.

Hannibal and Britta watch them retreat, and gather prisoners from those pockets of isolated men and injured ones left behind to surrender.

He dreams of the black stag crushed and dying beneath the rocks of the collapsed passage, of the foreign animal laying still down on the field where Kanin’s body was. 

He dreams of it shackled and slow moving amongst the herd of bay colored horses as they grazed in the fields behind the village.

There is no one single image - it has divided, the many solid squares of men are individuals again.

Last, he dreams of standing at the top of the path from the barrier mountains, looking down over the terrain beyond and seeing dark clouds dropping snow in white sheets in the distance.

Winter and stasis and family as a black, crowned shape vanishes amongst all the white. 

When he wakes, it feels as if he’d slept for years - but he is in his own bed, in his own room.

For a moment, he wonders if any time at all has passed, if he has not slipped back so far into the past as to have returned to winter.

But his belly hurts and he finds it thick with bandages when he presses his fingers to it, and slowly lifts himself from the bed.

The door is unlocked and without, Hannibal sits; looking tired but whole, save for the bandages on his chest and arm.

He sits where he has always, when Will’s gift sings out to him in the middle of the night. There are two cups on the table in front of him. 

Will ignores the cup set out at his usual place and instead eases himself gingerly onto the bench next to Hannibal, leaning his good side against Hannibal’s until he can feel their breathing align - and for the space of a few beats, their hearts.

“You shouldn’t be up,” Hannibal scolds, gently.

“Then join me in bed,” Will says, unwilling to leave his company.

Hannibal lifts his hand to run it through Will’s hair, over his shoulders.

“Take your tea first.”

Will finds the bitter taste of opium mixed into his tea and he hisses for the trap but drinks it anyway, and then drags Hannibal to bed.

They arrange themselves carefully with their injured limbs, but still close.

“I cut his heart out, you know,” Hannibal admits, his hand over Will’s injury, as if to undo it or take it for his own. “And I consumed it.”

Will knows he means Iohannes, but he cannot summon up disgust for it. The tradition was long dead, barbaric even in the tribes, but Iohannes had come expecting such horrors and barbarism.

Will presses his fingers against Hannibal’s lips, as if to feel for any remains on his incisors, and says only;

“Good.”

He is drifting when Hannibal’s question comes.

“What do you dream now, Will?”

“Be quiet,” Will tells him. “And let me dream it.”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -enda, 'the end' :)


	36. Epilogue

Each Imperial soldier had carried to war a set of iron shackles - a promisary of their spoils, even as common soldiers. 

Hannibal explained that each would have been allowed to choose a slave from the prisoners of war they took, or from amongst any of the conquered tribes. 

Instead he turns the shackles onto their owners, capturing the would-be captors and setting them to work digging and burying their own, and chopping for the biers of their fallen tribesmen. He does honor to each dead man in accord with his belief, a kindness the new slaves must see even if the bulk of the effort falls on their shoulders.

When it’s done, he arrays those well enough to stand and with Will at his side rides back and forth to look them over.

Stripped of their arms and armor, they are just men. They are perhaps a shade darker of skin, and tend toward brown and black hair rather than the shades of gold that were more common amongst the Surdik and Ardik tribes. 

Will wonders how they must feel, captive and so far from home. He wonders how many families will grieve.

Hannibal addresses them in their own language, and it sounds strange in his voice. Will has learned a word or two, but it is from Hannibal’s tone that he knows what his lord offers.

A chance to earn back their freedom as he had given to Fredrik - and to Will, too. He suppose the Imperials will find it as hard a notion to swallow as he had, and shares a smile with Fredrik behind Hannibal’s back.

“How many will we keep?” Will asks, when they have dismissed the slaves back to work.

“Britta drives a difficult bargain,” Hannibal answers, bemused. 

Will remembers how possessive she had become of her captured siege weapons, refusing to give up any that she had captured.

“But we will keep the majority - to restore us and to plant and reap a harvest with what time we have left for it,” Hannibal reveals. “They will not like it, but it’s their own mouths they will be feeding in the coldest part of winter.”

“And she says we may keep Fredrik as well,” Hannibal finishes, wryly.

“Provided you can stand to keep Freda?” Will asks, his gaze turning sharply toward Fredrik, finding his guess is right by the faint color on his face, flushing up his neck.

“She’s a capable warrior,” Hannibal answers, bland with amusement. “Though she tends to involve herself overmuch in affairs that don’t concern her.”

Fredrik sighs, and sullenly refuses to answer. He splits away from them on the main street, heading away toward the house he lives in, as Will and Hannibal return to their own.

He is conscious of the new horse in Kanin’s stall: a bay of some less commanding presence than his father had been. There were leggy youngsters out in the herd now that might better recall the stallion that had sired them, once they had grown.

Inexplicably, he had found his mule amongst the other horses, having found her way from the Imperial horse lines or perhaps all the way back from Surdia. She seemed to have befriended two dark, hopping brown foals with opposing white socks on different diagonals. 

Her name became ‘Rata’, Rover, and Will could not wholly understand his own affection for the odd, patient animal but he is as glad to see her now, jaw grinding hay in a placid way, as he had been to discover her return.

“Avigayil told me she fired the arrow,” Hannibal says, after a long quiet. “She considers it a payment of debt - both positive and negative.”

Will knows which arrow he means instinctively, while they stand in such context. It had claimed what was now missing, but had saved Hannibal’s life, perhaps.

“I think she means to depart with Britta’s tribe,” Will says. He has _seen_ it, as one possible outcome.

“It would suit her,” Hannibal allows, distant. “And she seems to think that there isn’t anything here for her.”

“All young adults believe such,” Will says, amused. He will miss her, but he knows she will be safe and valued with Britta’s people.

“Mm,” Hannibal answers, agreeing without needing words. They move inside, alone and free for the evening - or at least for the moment.

Will stops just inside and leans back into the arms that come up around him. Hannibal presses his palm against the tender, still-knitting scar on Will’s belly, comforting himself that Will is still whole.

“Freedom suits you,” Hannibal observes, running his other hand over Will’s wrist where the scars have faded. 

“I have not yet earned it,” Will says, and Hannibal’s laugh is only hot breath on his skin.

“Haven’t you?”

“I haven’t made you king,” Will observes, though it may not be much longer - the tribes are united, and Britta intends to see them stay that way.

“No,” Hannibal’s tone drifts upward into mischief, as if he does not much care. “Not yet.”

-

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Here we are at the end of the story! First things first:  
> -This work, from chapter 16 onwards, has been beta'd by Quedarius, (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius ), to whom I cannot extend enough thanks or praise. Seriously, I cannot begin to express how much stronger a piece I am able to give to you folks as a result of her dilligence and effort. She's an amazing author herself, so if Lag has left a hole in your life feel free to head over and check out what she can do.  
> -Every single one of you who commented, left kudos, or said a kind word to me on the subject of Lagbrotna, you were all heard and appreciated. Writing can be finicky, and I'm kind of easily discouraged. You guys stuck with me even through the rough patches, and if it weren't for your patience and kindness, I don't think this story would exist. THANK YOU. All of you. It's been an amazing trip.  
> -Also special thanks to whiskeyandspite & drinksbloodlikewine. Y'all are so patient with my bullshit.
> 
> Lastly:  
> -There may someday be more of this, but for right now I have moved on to other projects. Keep an eye out for the appearance of something new, or for a greatest hits experience, go ahead and check out & subscribe to http://princeandpotato.tumblr.com, where V and I will be promo-ing some of our old work with new insights. 
> 
> Thanks again, folks. You're amazing.

**Author's Note:**

> -The title becomes important likely in the next part, I'll explain it then. In the interim if you know enough norse it'll make some sense I hope.  
> -This is a fictionalized world with no basis in reality at this point and will likely stay that way  
> -WIP. Usually I try not to post those but I felt like I should try to beat anyone else to the punch and i have the better part of the next part written. I intend to use this as kind of a 'treat' for myself when I'm out of solid ideas for the ACCA pieces I'm working on. :)


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